The Road to Kynesgrove
by tapioca two-step
Summary: Delphine cannot abide fools or dragons. Unfortunately for her, Skyrim's resident Dovahkiin is a little bit of both. When her endeavor to take Paarthurnax's life with her own hands is foiled by a halfwit hero, the Blade is charged with the protection of one of the very creatures she's vowed to destroy.
1. Ambition

The Road to Kynesgrove

I: Ambition

The Dovahkiin was a little bit of an idiot.

Delphine crunched to an irritated halt, her breath streaming out in a long-suffering sigh. The steady snow that had been falling since she had first entered the region had been blown away with the clouds and the white powder had already been packed down into the spaces between the cobbles on the path she was treading. The wind remained though, icy and piercing, making her shiver under her leather armor. After living in Skyrim for so long, she was used to braving freezing temperatures but, for this time of year, the intense cold was unnatural, born from the presence of long-dead dragons suddenly resurrected.

Born from dragons. Dragonborn. Delphine's chapped lips didn't even crack a smile as the term crossed her mind and she turned her head over her shoulder to listen for the labored breathing and elephantine effort of her traveling companion bungling up the slope after her. A handful of footsteps later, an iron-clad figure clattered into view, sword banging against its thigh with every step. Short limbs and broad shoulders gave the figure away as a Breton (and a stout one at that, Delphine thought) and the eyes peering out from the helmet were large and dumb as a cow's. They caught Delphine's disapproving glance and the dirty face broke out into a smile.

"That's some workout, isn't it?" she panted. Then her face screwed up and she sneezed; her horned helmet slipping down her forehead.

Acajou. A fat Breton named Acajou was supposed to be the Dragonborn. Harbinger of the end times; the saviour of the world. Delphine didn't know whether to laugh or cry when this same figure, wearing a threadbare tunic and iron boots ("My armor got stolen last night!"), walked into The Sleeping Giant days before, looking and smelling as if she had lived in a barn for the past year. Her unusually short hair was plastered to her skull by the rain and her voice was hoarse but she asked for directions to the Seven Thousand Steps as easily and ignorantly as if she was ordering a bowl of tomato soup. When she left the next morning, Delphine had made a bet with herself: if the stranger survived the journey to and from High Hrothgar, Delphine would test the supposed Dragonborn. If Acajou failed to return- well, that was one more instance of failure that she could use to ridicule the Greybeards.

And then, wonder of wonders, the same woman came sauntering back into the inn on rubbery legs, sporting two black eyes, a sprained wrist, and the official blessing of the Greybeards as Dovahkiin. She seemed to handle the title as unsteadily as she gripped her sword in her wounded hand.

When Acajou was brought back to Riverwood from Ustengrad, bearing not the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller but a summons from Delphine, the innkeeper had seized the opportunity. The question was posed and accepted. Acajou was too stupid to turn down a suicide mission and Delphine was too stubborn to go back on her word. Soon they were both on the road to Kynesgrove.

Acajou's earth-shaking steps echoed Delphine's rapid ones as they departed Riverwood. The mountain watched their backs retreat over the sloping hills next to the river. Acajou, iron armor gleaming like a gem waiting to be stolen (Delphine had managed to scrounge up a set from somewhere), was soon puffing with exertion. The breastpiece covering her tunic was several sizes too big, even on her hefty frame, and a cloth skirt, held up by a leather belt, draped over the sturdy iron plates on her thighs and boots. Her walk was more of a rattling waddle than anything else and she crashed through the lowland brush like a charging bear. Still, she trooped obediently along the path after Delphine, her pace flagging only when they had reached the outskirts of Windhelm; by then she was gasping for air and tripping over her iron boots.

"Yes, it is a workout," Delphine answered, trying not to focus on the fact that the Dovahkiin was complaining more about the walking than the imminent confrontation with a dragon. "You should try to make a point of traveling lightly on long journeys." The innkeeper's own armor, supple leather molded to her body and accented with silver pieces, was light enough to travel silently in—but silent travel meant nothing when the person accompanying her was a loud horker of a woman.

"Oh, I left a bunch of my things at The Sleeping Giant," was the cheerful answer. "I pushed it all under the bed, so hopefully nothing will get stolen."

"Well, _something _seems to be slowing you down," Delphine said, slowing her pace to allow her companion to catch up. "What did you bring?"

The sound of chewing came to her ears, and she turned her head to see Acajou digging around in a good-sized cloth sack at her waist. In one hand, she held a half-eaten loaf of bread. Her other hand came out of the sack clutching an entire wheel of cheese. She beamed at Delphine.

"I get hungry real easy for some reason, but don't worry; I brought enough for both of us. Want some?"

Shaking her head at the wheel of cheese she was being offered, she turned and continued making her dogged way south; up the slope of the not-quite mountain where Kynesgrove was nestled. "I'm not too keen on weighing myself down with food before battle," she snapped tersely.

They walked in snowy silence for a bit, Acajou breathing hard around mouthfuls of bread and cheese. Absently she asked, "So you'll tell me what you want with me after we kill this dragon?"

"That's the agreement, yes."

Adjusting her tunic under her armor, Acajou took a few hurried steps and matched Delphine's long stride. "Are you a warrior?"

The term made Delphine smile. "You could say that. Are you?"

The Dragonborn's laugh was a deep one, straight from her belly, and she nearly choked on her own spit when she gasped for air. She was still laughing when Iddra, still in her cooking apron, came stumbling through the snow towards them, her eyes wild.

Delphine elbowed Acajou hard in the stomach to shut her up. Acajou, looking nauseated and struggling to regain her wind, glanced sheepishly at her innkeeper companion, whose blue eyes were fixed on the sky.

Above them, in the grey gloom of a building snowstorm, a winged shadow wove in and out of the clouds, circling.

* * *

He was a blight in the sky, all jagged angles and angry lines. Ink black and armored from nose-to-tail, the dragon punished the air with his wings. Beneath the black one, clawing up through the burial mound like a worm being flushed from the ground by a rainstorm, another dragon drank in the vile Thu'um that had given it breath after centuries of being dead. His body took on flesh and bulk even as it shook itself, as a horse does after a dust bath, and he raised his elegant silver head to face his lord. Delphine's stomach churned with disgust as he opened his mouth and hissed out something low in the column of its throat. The black one growled something back.

Acajou's expression was a mix of abject terror and keen interest. Somewhere on the wind, behind the sounds of beating wings and gusting winds and scraping branches, words were being said. None that she could understand but she at least knew that they were coming from the two dragons; and they were talking about _her_. She came out from behind the rock with her ears pricked to what the great horned dragon was grating out. Delphine, hearing only animal roars from the pair of giant Dovah in front of her, shot her hand out and snagged the top of her companion's boot. "Idiot! Get down!"

_"You do not even know our tongue, do you?"_

The contempt in his voice nearly stopped her heart. Peering out from beneath the brim of her helmet, she saw that the dragon in the air had dropped his head and was looking directly at her. The motion was so uncannily human that she whimpered, not even bothering to reach for her sword because she knew it wouldn't do any good against _this one. _She remembered him. Even if the attack on Helgen had happened fifty years ago, she would still remember this one's silhouette against the sky. In this moment, they were the only two warriors on the battlefield, and she quailed before him. His voice broke through her terror and burned into her ears.

_"Sahloknir!" _This was spoken with the air of giving a soldier an order as the black dragon banked and crested the trees to abandon the three of them on the hill. _"Krii daar joorre."_

The silver-white dragon leaped from the ground, spraying snow and chunks of earth in every direction. Acajou, always amazed at the smallest things, was speechless at how effortlessly the great mass of scales and teeth took to the sky. Gale force winds burst from his wings as he gained altitude._"I am Sahloknir!" _The words cut into Acajou's body and froze her to the spot. _"Hear my voice and despair!"_

The tiny Breton immediately obeyed. Her pupils shrank and her skin blanched underneath the dirt smeared on her face. Delphine saw her knees folding, seized her by the crook of her arm, and shouted directly in her face.

"Don't you dare pass out on me! You will stand and fight with me, do you hear?"

The wind shrieked in their ears along with the sound of inhaling. Delphine threw herself at Acajou and they both crashed to the ground as a column of subzero frost sliced through the air where they had been standing; the dragon's shadow passing over them like an eclipse. Snarling in frustration, Sahloknir pumped his wings and angled his body for another go-around. Delphine realized they wouldn't have enough time for careful battle tactics. The winner would be whoever could hold out the longest against the other's onslaught- and, to be honest, she didn't think she and cow-eyes constituted an onslaught for the dragon. She dragged Acajou to her feet, craning her neck to find the dragon circling like a vulture in the snowstorm above them. "I thought you brought one of these down before. Where's your bravado now?"

The Dragonborn visibly swallowed and fumbled for her bow. "This one's a lot bigger than the other one," she said, sounding guilty. Blindly groping behind her back for something, her mouth dropped open and she looked desperately over her shoulder. "Delphine, I left my arrows behind."

Turning her gaze to the empty expanse of Acajou's back, Delphine pressed her lips together. "What." Her voice was flat. Somehow, she was not surprised.

"When I unloaded my things at the inn, I accidentally left my arrows there, too."

Having the sudden urge to crack her companion over the head with her own (now useless) bow, Delphine allowed herself a moment to drag a hand down her face. "Did you remember to bring _anything_ that you could use in this fight? A sword? A knife? Harsh language?"

The Breton's gauntlet-clad hands went to her side. "I have a sword," she said, by way of apology. "It's just that I don't use a bow much because it's hard to aim, you know? I wasn't thinking."

"Apparently, you also weren't thinking when you brought an _iron _sword to a battle with a _dragon_." Delphine said sharply. "You'd do better by bringing a sharp stick."

Acajou looked hurt, holding the scabbard protectively against her leg. "It's served me well this far."

Delphine scrutinized the blade. The handle alone looked very, _very…_flimsy. It was also all this idiot Breton had to defend herself with. "If you say so. It's better than nothing. I'll try to get this son of a bitch on the ground and you can...do whatever you do. Right?"

"Uh, right. I think. I'll try."

Delphine found time to shoot one more look towards the Dovahkiin before she strung her own bow and centered her mind on the battle at hand. Muscles straining, her blonde hair whipping into her eyes, she pulled her arrow back and sighted down its slim length. When Sahloknir presented a clear target for her, she loosed, watching the missile's path through the air until it struck near the dragon's jaw. He shook his head as if a fly had landed on him, swooping low as if to land. Acajou was ready with three poorly-aimed blasts of fire; two of which went wide and set some scraggly trees ablaze. Her cheeks darkened with an embarrassed blush.

Delphine's eagle-eye tracked the dragon through the skies as Acajou shifted back and forth next to her, breathing heavily despite not having exerted herself yet. When Sahloknir banked hard right and veered towards them, Delphine smiled grimly.

"Come on, I'm right here! Come get me!"

The seasoned fighter loosed arrow after arrow towards her oncoming foe, watching each thud into the silver scales, growing progressively more frustrated at his lack of concern.

"Fight me!" Her voice was hoarse with the cold and the beginnings of fear. "You will not ignore me!"

As if on cue, the dragon folded his wings and struck the ground like a meteor, felling a tree somewhere behind them with a sound like bones breaking. Acajou lost her sword, along with her balance, and landed flat on her back. Tail lashing behind him, talons scoring the ground in long, deep furrows, the dragon arched its neck and opened its mouth. Delphine's knees shook as she breathed the reek of blood and death that poured from the creature's maw. Up close, the dragon made her seem like a withered leaf. He could kill her with one careless blow. Her nocked arrow clattered against her bow when she raised it to attack. If she was going to die today, she was going to go with honor. She fixed her gaze on the pulsing silver scales on the dragon's chest and prepared to let fly.

Propped up on her elbows on the frozen ground, Acajou saw the signs of the dragon's next attack: the arched neck, the braced legs, the wings tucked close. The air seemed to get sucked out of her lungs as the beast flared its nostrils and inhaled like a hurricane. Delphine was too focused on the wall of scales directly in front of her to see the telltale glow building behind the dagger-sized teeth and the forked tongue. Panicking, Acajou grabbed her snow-covered sword and hauled herself to her feet, feeling the air crackling around her even as she ran. If she didn't do something, Delphine- brusque, bitchy, unbelieving Delphine -would be instantly killed.

The innkeeper heard the sound of Acajou scrambling into the fight but she didn't dare take her attention away from her target. It was only when she felt an incredible chill building above her helmet did she realize that she had made a stupid, stupid mistake. She knew better than to look up but she knew what was about to happen. There was nowhere to go. Relaxing her fingers, she listened to the satisfying, wet thud of the arrow finding its mark somewhere inconsequential on the dragon's neck as her enemy's mouth opened wide above her.

And then Acajou spoke. It wasn't quite speech, at least not in the sense that Delphine could understand, but they _were _words ripped from Acajou's throat by desperation to fall upon Delphine's ears like physical blows. Simultaneously, her whole body jerked to the side, legs leaving the ground and flopping over her head as she cartwheeled through the air. Somewhere along the line, she met branches and a sturdy trunk, and her fingers closed automatically on whatever she could grip as her head spun crazily. When the world stopped tipping from side-to-side in her vision, Delphine could see through blurry eyes that the dragon had been flipped onto its back, and stupid, stupid Acajou was standing on its belly and hacking at the flesh at her feet like a clumsy lumberjack. The grip on her sword was bad though and the most damage she was doing was making superficial red marks that bled little and hurt less. The dragon bellowed once, spraying a blizzard into the air from its mouth, and Acajou was off like a jackrabbit across the hill, screaming panicked curses as the dragon flipped over and began its furious pursuit.

_Idiot_, Delphine thought, blinking stars from her vision and looking around. An oak tree had stopped her from tumbling down the steep hill; her back stung with the contact. She was struggling to a stand, breathing deeply against the pain, when the great sails of the dragon's wings unfurled just over the curve of the hill and he was in the air again. She braced herself against the trunk, widening her eyes when she noticed the dark flow of blood from both sides of the dragon's neck. Had Acajou really managed to injure him?

Sahloknir, apparently more irritated than injured, hovered in the air above the hill much like a swimmer treads water, hissing. If Delphine didn't know any better, she could have sworn he was talking. Then the air warped again, like someone had thrown a stone into a still pond, and she heard those words again, short and guttural. Sahloknir bucked in mid-air and lost his lift, landing heavily on his legs. Immediately his head struck downwards and Delphine heard his jaws snap. They sounded like an executioner's axe falling.

On unsteady legs, she hurried as quickly as she could back towards the battlefield, her freezing fingers clenched around her bow. When she reached the flat peak of the hill, she finally glimpsed Acajou again and let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Blood was visibly smeared down the front and back of the Dovahkiin's armor and she was greatly favoring one leg as she struggled to hold the dragon at bay. She swiped steadily over her head with her sword, hoping that one of her blows would land, not really bothering to strategize or aim. The sight of the Dragonborn waving a weapon with the damage equivalent that a toothpick would cause in a dragon's face nearly made Delphine weep for the future of Skyrim.

And then— hardly surprising to the innkeeper— a backhand stroke planted Acajou's sword firmly against Sahloknir's jawbone. It bit in a quarter of an inch and then snapped like a dead branch, leaving Acajou to stare dumbly at the useless hilt still clutched in her hand. Sahloknir made a noise in his throat that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Helpless. One bite and she'd be done.

"Acajou!" Delpine had the same thought, and she loosed an arrow into the ridge of Sahloknir's back. "Get away from its _mouth, _idiot!"

The Breton, finally seeming to realize the position she had put herself in, made as if to turn to run, but her injured leg buckled beneath her and she went down like a sack of bricks. Sahloknir dove towards his downed target but was stopped by quickly-strung arrows thudding into his exposed side.

"Over here, you coward!"

Sahloknir cocked his head to the side at the sound of her voice and suddenly his haunches moved as his tail swung through the air like a scythe. The whiplike-end caught Delphine across the back and slammed her stomach-first into the ground. She gagged while trying to catch her breath, dimly aware that the dragon had fixed its attention on her and was curling its neck towards her, mouth open, breathing freezing wind towards her in preparation for another Shout. Furious with herself for letting this animal best her, she rolled onto her back, fighting nausea, and released another arrow. This time it found a painful mark near his eye, or else Sahloknir was weakening, for he threw his head up and bellowed furiously.

_That's right, scream, _Delphine thought wrathfully. _S__cream and bleed_. Her body was moving mechanically now, in quick, strategic movements that put her behind boulders or just out of reach of Sahloknir's teeth as she struck him again and again with arrows. His silver hide was traced with little red rivers that made Delphine's heart soar when she saw them. Little by little, she was stealing his life. Little by little, she was stepping back into her ancient role, and she loved every second of it. The only problem was that Sahloknir gave as much as he got, and before long both of them were bleeding and nearly driven to exhaustion.

Only when her calloused hand groped vainly for more arrows in the empty quiver on her back did Delphine stop to think where the Dovahkiin had gone. A quick glimpse around the lumpy hilltop showed only scrubby brush and boulders and trees and an injured, furious dragon. Wearily drawing her sword, Delphine tried to circle around Sahloknir to access his soft belly. She kept her eyes fixed on his and he watched her calmly, shifting his body to keep his underside protected. He lunged forward to snap at her when she drew too close but she danced backwards just out of reach of his teeth. In a surprising display of speed that he hadn't exhibited since the beginning of the battle, Sahloknir pushed off of the ground and half-jumped, half-flew to the ridge behind her, spinning around and inhaling, preparing to Shout. He brought his great head down to Delphine's level, close enough so that she could see the burnished gold of his eyes, gloating and terrible.

And then the ground started to shake.

Delphine barely had time for a single thought— _a giant? _—to flicker through her head before a huge black shape barreled of out her peripheral vision and straight into Sahloknir's skull, crushing it instantly. The dragon's neck swung to the side like a pendulum and his body followed, flopping over once in the time it took for the boulder to bounce once over the slope of the hill and crash through the sparse trees towards Kynesgrove. Sahloknir forgotten, Delphine scrambled, panicked, after it to see where it would end up. She heard the smashing stone and splintering wood even before she reached the ledge to look down into the little village. Even through the thick flurries of snow, she could see the brand new boulder-shaped door in the back wall of the inn, letting the warm light of the fires inside illuminate the wreckage of broken stone and wood that used to be a feed trough. A cow, drawn to the warmth and the smell of mead, picked its way delicately over the stone and stepped inquisitively into the inn, moving around the boulder that sat close to the hole that it had made.

"That was close, wasn't it?"

Delphine spun around to find Acajou standing behind her, shoulders sagging, her body bending under the weight of her armor. She wiped her hand under her nose and sniffed.

"What. The. _H__ell. _Was that."

Oblivious, Acajou flopped onto her rump, removing her helmet. "I Shouted a boulder off of the hill up there," she said proudly. "I figured maybe that would work."

"But you— I —You nearly killed me!" Delphine was so baffled by her companion's stupidity that she was spluttering and tripping over her words. "If there had been any people in the inn you could have killed _them_, too! Do you ever use your brain? Do you even _have _one?"

Acajou looked genuinely confused. "But didn't Iddra evacuate the inn?"

"Who knows? I didn't stick around to double-check. You can't count on other people in those circumstances, Acajou. You've got to take people's safety into your own hands if you want the job done right."

Again dragging a hand down her face, Delphine laughed humorlessly. "Killing a dragon via boulder-Shouting. I've heard it all, now." She looked over her shoulder at the moon-colored, hulking form of the dragon, lying quietly as if he was sleeping on the hilltop.

With his powerful legs pinned under his body and his wings folded tight to his sides, Sahloknir looked like a silver boat that had been beached long ago, brittle and gray with age. The spikes on his spine shone in the sunlight and his face looked just as fierce in death, mouth open to show rows of teeth and a lolling, forked tongue. Involuntarily she shuddered at how close she had come to being acquainted with those teeth.

Beside her, Acajou sat with her legs splayed, her gut hanging over her waistband from beneath her armor, coughing wetly into her her hands. Her sword lay forgotten next to her, along with several spilled bottles of potion that made colorful stains of crimson and green on the snow. Her eyes met Delphine's and she smiled uncertainly.

Delphine was about to speak when she heard, rather than saw, what she had been waiting for- a kind of singing in the air, a change in the silence around them. Acajou straightened up and her eyes became very bright, although with eagerness or apprehension Delphine could not tell. Her skin prickled as the air around them grew comfortably warmer; unnerved, she stepped back a few feet, keeping her eyes on Acajou. Sahloknir's misty grey scales stirred and peeled off of his body, fluttering into the sky like embers on the updraft of a fire, exposing his massive skeleton to the mountain air. Transfixed, Delphine held her breath, fixing wide eyes on the sight before her. Then, soundlessly, the soul of the dragon lifted with the breeze out of the dragon's corpse and coursed into the Breton in dancing ribbons of gentle, transparent amber and lavender light. Delphine was amazed that such a beautiful thing could come from Sahloknir. It reminded her of the aurora that reigned over Skyrim's night sky, ageless and beautiful.

And at the center of it was Acajou, lumped on the ground, a goofy smile scrawled on her exhausted face as ethereal light sank into her body. Delphine shook her head at the ridiculousness of the situation.

"Well, by the Nine," she said. "Looks like you were the right son of a bitch after all."

Acajou put a hand on her pudgy stomach. "It kinda feels like puking," she confessed. "The Shouting, I mean. I don't know if I'm doing it right."

"You probably shouldn't use it to hurl boulders through inn walls any more, that's for sure," Delphine said, but a small smile curved her mouth when she said it. No matter how stupid the idea had been, it had worked.

"I guess I should invest in a better sword, then."

"Might be a good idea." Delphine glanced down at her. "You won't get nearly as chewed up next time."

"You don't look so good yourself." Acajou reached down and rubbed her bleeding calf. The iron boot was smeared with blood. "Can we get going now?"

Sahloknir was dead. They had killed a dragon together. True, she was fat and pretty stupid, but Acajou was the Dragonborn. The Greybeards had been correct, for once. Delphine found herself smiling. Finally, decades after her birth, her compass was finally aligning itself with her true purpose once again.

"Yeah," she said, reaching down and helping Acajou to her feet. They stood for a moment, surveying their kill, and then Delphine made to move off down the hill. "We should check the inn to see how much damage you caused. Maybe we can help them rebuild later."

Acajou muttered something.

"Hmm?"

"I kind of feel bad for him," Acajou repeated absently, struggling to untie her empty scabbard from her waist.

Delphine stiffened.

_Feel bad for *him*?_

Her good mood evaporated, but she bit her tongue. _Don't jump to conclusions. Maybe she doesn't mean it like that._

Pretending to be greatly interested in adjusting her boot, Delphine looked out of the corner of her eye at the Dovahkiin. "How so?"

Adjusting the helmet upon her head once more- and pushing it up again after it immediately slipped down over her eyes- Acajou beamed her stupid smile at Delphine.

"I don't know, exactly. I think maybe I'd be okay with killing dragons when they threaten people or livestock, but I don't know if I'd seek them out to kill them." She looked at the dragon's skeleton hulking at her side and furrowed her thick eyebrows. "It feels strange when I eat their souls. I wish it didn't happen."

In two strong steps Delphine was at her side; in another second she had shoved the Dovahkiin onto her back in the snow and had planted her boot squarely on her armored chest. The surprised look on Acajou's face melted into one of fear when she saw Delphine's expression.

"I don't know if you've been taking skooma or what," Delphine said, "but if I ever hear you say those words again, I will gut you. You think you have a say in the matter? If there are dragons in the world again, you _must_ kill them. They are heartless brutes who thrive on the domination and destruction of people like you and me. You cannot have any room in your heart for mercy for these creatures. Skyrim has to depend on you, Akatosh help us, for its survival. Do you think I'm going to support you when I know you actually feel for creatures that have no regard for human life?"

Acajou frowned down at the foot on her chest. "I didn't ask you to help me," she said. She sounded suspiciously like she was pouting. A thirty-some year old woman *pouting*. Delphine wanted to kick her in the jaw.

_Careful, careful. You might scare her away. Think of the big picture. _You_ need _her_ help more than she needs yours._

Taking a calming breath through her nose, Delphine chose her words carefully, knowing she was treading on glass. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to argue with you. I thought that, as the Dragonborn, you would use your gift for the good of mankind. I'm not asking you to kill your best friend, for the gods' sake. I'm asking you to fulfill your destiny by eradicating the creatures who want to enslave us."

The cold wind howled around the hill and Sahloknir's bones clattered softly together. The defiant look in Acajou's eyes faded and she sniffed to clear her stuffed nose. "Okay, Delphine," she said placidly. "I'm sorry."

Delphine was still tense, but Acajou's apology would have to do. She shivered, embarrassed about her unease around the dragon's skeleton. It still seemed to be watching her. "Come on, then," she said. "We're done here."

The Breton patiently brushed the snow off of the backs of her legs, her docile expression entirely readable. "It's going to be a cold walk back," she said pleasantly. "I'm in the mood for some soup." She dug around in the pouch at her side and pulled out a hunk of bread. "What was all the stuff you going to tell me about, again?"

Delphine examined her face before replying. When she did, her voice was quiet. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know on the way back to Riverwood. It'll take at least that long to explain everything to you."

Acajou smiled around the bite she had taken and waddled off down the hill, nearly tripping over Sahloknir's tail as she did so.

Delphine watched the Dovahkiin's back with careful eyes. The potential for her stupidity and naivete to lead her down the wrong path was boundless. She had to make absolutely sure that Acajou didn't stray from the path that Delphine was forging for her. Lifting her head, she fixed the intensity of her gaze on the huge mountain that cut into the sky to the southwest, on the cloud-shrouded peak that shielded her silent foes.

_Soon, _she thought. _Soon._

* * *

_Please let me know what you think! I couldn't get this idea out of my head and I think I'm going to have a lot of fun writing it! :) Updates will come weekly. Thanks for reading!  
_


	2. Overlord

_Skyrim and all related characters and situations belong to Bethesda._

* * *

**The Road to Kynesgrove**

II: Overlord

_Months Later_

Acajou sat at the table in the dining chamber of Sky Haven Temple, her head tipped back, steadily draining the contents of a bowl of stew. Her full set of steel armor was heaped in a messy pile next to her chair and the tunic she had squeezed into was threadbare under the arms; the meager garment had so many holes that she looked like she had gotten into a fight with a thorn bush. Still, the Breton looked none the worse for wear despite the months of nonstop fighting, and the primary emotion on her face was the pure enjoyment of having a full belly again after her journey from High Hrothgar.

Delphine sat cross-legged on the low ledge before the hearth, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her golden hair unbound. The small room was filled with light and movement and laughter, something she was entirely unaccustomed to. She listened absently as Sven, one of the three recruits that Acajou had brought to the Temple some weeks ago, recalled a tale about a Khajit taking one too many hits of skooma and waking up dressed like a Forsworn in a tree surrounded by hagravens. Mjoll and Erandur chuckled politely at the story but Acajou nearly killed herself laughing, banging the table with her bare fist and upsetting the mug of cider next to her now empty bowl. Half of it ended up in her lap before she even realized it.

For Delphine, though, there was nothing to laugh about. She had thought everything had been going so well during the few months since Sahloknir's death. Not only had Acajou helped her find Esbern, a fellow Blade whom she had thought was long dead, but Sky Haven Temple was now their official headquarters, and they had three new recruits that had pledged to serve as Blades until they died. It was all better than Delphine had hoped, even though the recruits weren't exactly her ideal templates upon which to imprint her doctrines. Still, they had promise, and would turn out to be fine warriors one day. Except Sven.

But Esbern had come to her with troubling news, and she found herself wishing that she had actually made good on her promise to gut the Dovahkiin after the battle at Kynesgrove. She was itching to confront the Dragonborn and be proven wrong, but something in her heart told her that Esbern's accusations were true.

"I can't wait until I bring down my first dragon," Sven was saying, miming sword strikes with a loaf of bread. He was wearing his full Blades armor despite training being over for the day, saying that the sleek black lines made him "irresistibly mysterious". He did look handsome, Delphine had acknowledged, but that was all the credit she could give him. "The dragons will be so fearful of me that they'll have to give me one of their special three-word names. Esbern!" He called this to the bearded man in a plain tunic, sitting in a chair in the corner and reading a book by the light of a single candle. "What're the dragon words for 'mighty, fearless, dragonslayer'?"

Esbern didn't look up from the ancient book in his wrinkled hands. "Pookmeyzol."

Sven repeated the word a few times, tasting it. "I like it," he decided finally. "Its nobility suits me."

Erandur, silent until this point, snorted on soft laughter. His narrow shoulders shook faintly. Sven cut his eyes at this colleague.

"What are you laughing at, _Dunmer?_"

Erandur managed to sober himself, but he couldn't hide the smile in his curiously lilting voice. "Nothing. I was just wondering what you were trying to prove."

Sven narrowed his eyes. "Nothing, to _you. _And I think it would be wise to not laugh at my expense. Fellow warrior or not, I will have to teach you a few things if you continue to belittle me."

Erandur was not impressed. "I would highly suggest not threatening someone who you will be depending on when you go off to dance with dragons, _bard. _Mjoll and I have both been tested in battle with the Dovahkiin and have emerged victorious, but from what I've been told, you owe your allegiance to Acajou because you made her run courier for you during a lovers' quarrel." He drained his tankard, his face still hidden by his mage hood. "Why you are considered an asset to this organization is beyond me."

Sven's ears and cheeks turned pink, visible in the ruddy firelight. "Just wait. Pookmeyzol is destined for great things!"

Mjoll drummed her fingertips on the table beside her empty plate. "I'll just be happy when Pookmeyzol manages to actually _strike _a target during practice."

Erandur nodded. "That'll be the day," he muttered.

Suddenly, in one liquid movement, Esbern closed his book and stood up from his chair. "Delphine, Acajou, could you meet me by Alduin's Wall? We need to discuss something."

Acajou, who had still been chuckling to herself over Sven's joke, pushed herself away from her place, popping a few more carrots in her mouth. Turning to wave back at her three followers, she tripped over one of her steel boots and went down heavily on her hands and knees. Delphine stepped over her fallen form and followed Esbern into the darkness. "Hurry up," she said over her shoulder.

Scrambling up, Acajou followed them down the stairs like an excited puppy, informing Esbern of her latest journey with the Companions of Ysgrammor. When she had first heard of Acajou being inducted into their ranks, Delphine had to refrain from writing a letter to Kodlak, asking him if he had been drugged when he had accepted her. The thought of Acajou belonging to the group of honorbound and bravehearted individuals was almost pitifully funny.

"Oh, Delphine." Acajou interrupted her own story as the three of them came into the cavernous main chamber that housed Alduin's Wall. A long, low stone table before the Wall was adorned with candelabras and bowls of dried lavender. Open books, brittle pages torn at the edges, were neatly stacked wherever there was a space that could hold them. "If this is about bringing people to induct into the Blades, I haven't found anybody else that wants to come with me." She made a face. "Not unless I pay them, that is, and I'm kind of…poor."

"Three is enough for now," Delphine informed her curtly as she followed Esbern up the steps. He stopped in front of the center of Alduin's Wall, folding his arms, preparing himself. "This is about something different. Esbern?"

"For the past several months, I've been doing a great deal of research." Esbern began. Delpine rolled her eyes; Esbern had a tendency towards excessive wordiness. "I've immersed myself entirely in the lore stored in this place, going through hundreds of books, learning more than I ever dreamed about the bloody history between dragons and men. There are absolutely fascinating stories of dragons in these books— every dragon that's ever breathed is named and the tales of their atrocities are written down in such detail—"

"Esbern!"

Esbern shot a little glare towards Delphine; nevertheless he managed to direct his words back towards the topic at hand. "However, there was a name that kept coming up in many of the books detailing the loss of life during the Dragon Wars; a name that struck terror into the hearts of all who heard it. I translated it to read 'ambition, overlord, cruelty'_. _This name— this dragon —was one of Alduin's most trusted allies until he turned against Alduin just before his defeat. In the dragons' native tongue, the words are pronounced _paarthurnax_. You might have heard of him."

The half-smile that Acajou's mouth always wore faded slowly as Esbern went on, replaced with a slight frown accompanied by a furrowed forehead. She looked from one Blade to the other and back again, shuffling her feet.

"We find it very…distressing…that you've been communicating with this dragon for months without letting us know about him. We find it even more distressing that you did not kill this dragon as soon as was reasonably possible. Now that you've learned what you can from the so-called leader of the Greybeards and sent Alduin to Sovngarde, there is no reason to allow him to live."

Delphine's voice was curt. "We knew that the Greybeards were dragon-lovers but we didn't realize that they were being governed by one. Paarthurnax needs to die."

Trapped between the intensity of Delphine's stare and Esbern's patient but expectant silence, all Acajou could do was fidget uncomfortably. Laughter floated in from the dining room but this time it sounded hollow.

"Did you hear me, dragonslayer? I said I want you to kill Paarthurnax."

Her hands came together, fingers twisting around each other. She looked to Esbern for help but the old man's gentle face was unreadable.

Delphine slammed her fist against Alduin's Wall, causing Esbern to visibly wince as if _he_ had been struck. "Answer me!"

"I heard you."

"And?"

Acajou's face looked like she was trying to work out a particularly hard math problem. "Why?"

Delphine was glad for Esbern's presence. If it weren't for his hand on her shoulder, she doubted if there would have been enough left of Acajou to clean off of the floor. The old warrior stepped forwards, his gravelly voice calm but firm.

"We thought you would have understood your role as Dragonborn by now. Now, you might not know the entire history of the reign of dragons over man but you have seen firsthand their ferocity and lust for destruction. You have seen villages and villagers alike consumed by their fire. As long as the Blades exist, no dragon must be allowed to live. You knew this when you started helping us, did you not?"

"He helped me," Acajou said feebly. "We talked. Like two people would talk."

"What of it?" Esbern asked. "Dragons are intelligent creatures. Paarthurnax's willingness to make an ally of you only speaks of his nature to preserve himself. You are the only one that can truly kill him, after all."

The Dovahkiin grimaced, as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. "He's not like the others. He fought Alduin with me. He's my friend."

Delphine bit the inside of her cheek so hard it started to bleed but, before she could speak, Esbern said sharply, "That makes him worse, not better. He is merely casting his lot in with the strongest contender in the fight for this world. By your very nature you are stronger than Alduin but, before you, Alduin's might, his Thu'um, was law. And the dragon that the World-Eater sent to do his bloody bidding was Paarthurnax. Thousands of deaths, Acajou. Hundreds of thousands of deaths that he directly caused. Your 'friend', the monster that the Greybeards are shielding from the justice of the Blades, nearly wiped mankind from existence. His betrayal of Alduin and abstinence from murder does not excuse his crimes. He _must_ die."

The only sounds in the room were the soft hissing flames in the braziers on either side of Alduin's Wall and the gentle rustling of the banners hanging from the ceiling. Acajou turned the words over and over in her mind, trying to assign the term 'enemy' to Paarthurnax. In the end, she couldn't do it, and she turned helplessly back to Delphine. The Blade was prepared with cutting words.

"You're getting in too deep to be playing both sides, Dragonborn. As Blades, we are sworn to your service. Our lives are yours. We will follow you into certain death but only if you set the example and fully embrace the role you were born with: to be the perfect dragonslayer. This is the only way we can support you. If you betray us- betray Skyrim- by allowing Paarthurnax to live, you might as well not fight Alduin at all and let him consume the world."

Esbern cleared his throat. "Well, I'd say that's pushing it a bit _too _far."

"I wouldn't." Delphine didn't take her eyes off of Acajou. "Why would you stop now, Acajou? You've killed a dragon with me, found Esbern, followed us here, set us back on our feet, and brought us new Blades. Why would you do all that if your very nature did not demand it? You know dragons are evil. Why hold out for this one?"

"He's...because..."

"We each have our own destinies," Delphine interrupted. "Mine is to be a Blade and seek the death of every dragon I know about. This blessing has been passed down to me by my ancestors, who were charged thus by Tiber Septim, Emperor of Tamriel and a great Dovhakiin. If you are going to keep me- keep my organization- from this goal, then I have no further use for you. You are a disgrace to Tiber Septim and everything that the Dragonborn bloodline is supposed to represent."

So saying, she shouldered past Acajou, heading towards the stairs, her fists clenched so hard that her nails bit into the straps of her gauntlets.

Acajou didn't watch her leave. She glued her chin to her chest and crossed her arms, trying to define the feeling that was sitting heavily in her chest. Delphine had voiced it- betrayal. She was feeling betrayed. She hadn't known Paarthurnax's history and it made her stomach lurch to think of him being Alduin's enforcer. Paarthurnax, who had nearly bowled her over when she first answered his Thu'um at their first meeting. Paarthurnax, who she had sat and talked with for hours, who had remained with her during the battle at the Throat of the World, his Voice warring with Alduin's. She couldn't kill him. The thought of taking a blade to his throat was-

"Wait."

Delphine ignored her, boots striking the stairs.

"Delphine, wait. I'll introduce you to him."

Her foot froze halfway to the next step. For balance, her hand came down and clutched the stone banister. Esbern made a little choking sound.

In Acajou's mind, wheels were turning. Slowly. "I can prove to you that he's different," she said, an unsteady smile appearing on her features once more. "You just think all of those horrible things about him because you've never spoken with him before. Not all dragons are the same. Paarthurnax fights _for _humans. I don't have to pick sides because he's on _our _side, don't you see? All you need to do is give him a chance."

When neither of the Blades answered, she barreled on, recklessly happy. "He can even help us fight the bad dragons. You don't have to waste arrows any more, Delphine— Paarthurnax can knock dragons right out of the sky! Come with me to High Hrothgar and talk with him. I promise that you'll like him."

"You fool—," Esbern began, but Delphine said his name once, sharply, like a warning. The Blades' eyes met, and understanding dawned on Esbern's face when he saw Delphine's expression.

"You're saying that you'll take me up to the Throat of the World to…meet Paarthurnax?" Her voice was infinitely careful.

Acajou nodded fervently. "Yes! You'll have to take something warm because it's very cold up there, colder than Kynesgrove, but of course I'll take you."

"The Greybeards won't let you pass through their gates," Esbern said quietly.

"They will," Acajou said. "They trust me. If you promise not to hurt Paarthurnax when we get there, they will be happy to let you through."

"Esbern's right. They won't let me in, even if I leave all of my weapons here and travel there half-naked. They don't trust _me. _That's the problem."

Acajou puzzled over this for a moment, but not for long; she had convinced herself that this plan was going to work. She was going to spare Paarthurnax's life and convince the Blades—her followers—that he could be their friend. "Then you'll just have to convince _me _that you won't hurt Paarthurnax and I'll think of a way to get you past the Greybeards if they refuse you entry. Sometimes, I can be smarter than I look."

Delphine decided not to comment on the wet trail of spilled cider that ran down the Dovahkiin's trouser leg in a…very unfortunate place.

Esbern met the other Blade's eyes. "Are you going to promise that you will not strike Paarthurnax down, Delphine?"

Acajou had brought Esbern and her back together. Acajou had saved the Blades from extinction. Delphine cast a critical eye at Acajou, whose hopeful look reminded her of a child asking its mother for permission, begging with their eyes.

"I promise," Delphine said. "I will go with you."

Her hand moving to rest carelessly on the hilt of her sword was all the answer Esbern needed. Shaking his head, he moved to walk down the stairs back to the dining chamber, absently patting Acajou on the shoulder as he passed her.

Behind them, glowing with happiness in the semi-dark, Acajou beamed up at Delphine. "I'll get my things."

* * *

_I hope you liked it! Please let me know what you think. I had to rewrite part of the beginning of this chapter because somehow my computer ate my last save, so hopefully it all makes sense! Thanks very much to Chadam, Y-ko, everyonesgoncrazy, Lo Zin, HowAboutThisForAName, and br for reviewing. Many thanks to my beta Thug for keeping me straight. Expect an update in a few days! Happy Friday. :)_


	3. Cruelty

****_Skyrim and all related characters and situations belong to Bethesda.  
_

* * *

**The Road to Kynesgrove**

III: Cruelty

"Delphine, I think we're stuck."

The Dovahkiin and the Blade stood on a whisper-thin shelf of rock with nothing but open air surrounding them on three sides. Acajou had one hand on her hip and the other scratching the back of her head, her face plastered with a perplexed look. Delphine, blue and shivering, loomed next to her like an angry shadow, her hands tucked into her armpits and her armor decorated with thin fingers of ice. Behind them, a nearly sheer cliff of rock and ice from which the shelf protruded shone in the midnight moonlight, regal, beautiful, and impossible to climb.

Delphine hadn't been surprised when Arngeir had met them both at the entrance to High Hrothgar with two bowls of warm soup and orders to eat and immediately leave. The old man had affixed her with such a look of mistrust and hatred that she had had to restrain herself from punching him right in his bearded face. Between spoonfuls of meaty broth, Acajou had tried to convince him of her brilliant plan, but he would have no part of it.

"You must understand, Dragonborn," he had said as he closed the doors of High Hrothgar to them. "You are most certainly welcome here. We can even stomach the presence of this...friend of yours...in the monastery. But to take her up to where our master meditates is unthinkable. I'm sorry, but I must turn you away."

They had both stared at the closed doors in silence before Acajou said, "I have another idea."

Which is how they had ended up stranded nearly all the way up the north face of the Throat of the World, in the middle of the night, with their only options being to turn around and hike five hours back to High Hrothgar or remain on the ledge and succumb to hypothermia. Delphine's fingers itched to close around Acajou's throat.

"How wonderful," Delphine said, frustration making her voice clipped. "It finally occurred to you that neither of us are mountain goats."

"I didn't know it would be this steep," Acajou said. She craned her neck. "I wonder if we can get up there?" Delphine followed her pointing finger to a ledge thirty feet up.

"I don't know if this has sunk into your skull yet, but we cannot possibly climb a vertical ice wall, Acajou." Delphine ran her hand down her face. "We'll have to go back down the mountain and camp out somewhere and then try another route tomorrow. Or, you _could _do as we asked and get rid of Paarthurnax so we don't have to go through this ridiculousness. How does that sound?"

Pushing out her lower lip, Acajou scanned the crags and peaks surrounding them. The delicate engravings on her armor were clogged with snow and her nose was bright red from the cold. She seemed to turn several ideas over in her head, contemplating each one, and then her eyes brightened. She turned to Delphine with a clap of her hands. "I have an idea!"

"I hope it involves turning around and thinking this through before we both fall to our deaths." Delphine said sourly, and then staggered, almost fell, as Acajou seized her under the arms in a breath-robbing bear hug. "Whoa—w-wait, what are you doing?"

"_Wuld na kest!"_

Her stomach was left behind on the narrow ledge as her body was launched forwards through empty air, straight up the mountain's slope. Delphine couldn't even draw breath to scream. She clamped her eyes and mouth shut and prayed to every Divine she could think of that they would end up safely on solid ground; that they wouldn't break _too _many bones when they fell; that they would at least be spared the embarrassment of dying while trying to scale the sheer face of the tallest mountain in Skyrim.

And then their forward momentum was gone and they were falling forwards, the narrow mountain shelf rushing up to meet them—

"_Guh!_" Acajou's aim had been off by a few degrees; Delphine was thrown into a snow bank on the ledge while Acajou caught the lip of it with her solar plexus. Her hands closed on fists of snow as she started to slip, solid ground hundreds of feet below her swinging boots. Seeing the Dragonborn about to fall, Delphine, powdered with snow, lunged forwards and grabbed both of her forearms.

"Can you push yourself up with your feet?" She called, bracing against the substantial weight threatening to topple her over the ledge.

A wheezing gasp was her reply. Rolling her eyes, the Blade grit her teeth and dug her feet into the lumpy rock beneath the snow. Back and neck muscles bunching, arms burning, she locked her fingers around Acajou's arms and pulled. Despite the cold, sweat broke out on her forehead. She straightened to her full height before Acajou was able to swing one booted foot onto the ledge. Even then, she didn't let go of Delphine's arms and looked up into her face, eyes wide and shining.

"That was close," she croaked. Obviously she hadn't gotten her breath back. Delphine sat down heavily next to the exhausted dovahkin, resting her elbows on her knees and dropping her chin to her chest. The wind gusted around them, numbing her face; she breathed deeply to slow her pounding heart.

"How did you do that? That was a _wall of ice._ Did you run up it or something?"

"I don't know, exactly. I just did it and hoped for the best."

_Of course. _"Do you ever stop to think before you do things like that?"

Acajou looked slyly at her. "No, but it worked, didn't it? I was so scared I was going to fall, though!" She chuckled at herself until Delphine punched her in the arm and stood up.

"Next time, _warn _me when you're gonna do that. Idiot."

But Acajou was grinning, breath coming out in clouds, and she struggled to her feet amidst a chorus of creaking and banging armor. "Look where we are, though!" She exclaimed, wriggling with happiness like a puppy.

Delphine looked; the mountain fell away from them in shining sheets of grey and white. Far below, the rest of the world encircled the mountain like a skirt, visible only between the haze of clouds drifting lazily by. Everything shone in the starlight. She would have enjoyed the view if she wasn't so tensely focused on the task ahead of her.

Acajou passed her in a blur, scrambling up the rocks, slipping every few steps. "Come on!" she called over her shoulder, sinking up to her knees in snow but continuing her dogged way upwards. "We can get up there this way."

Delphine watched as she made it the last few feet over the slope and onto what looked like solid ground. Her body buzzed with newfound energy born from apprehension. She placed one foot in front of the other and began the last few feet of the climb, the moon watching her back as she pulled herself through the snow.

The mountaintop was wind-whipped and filled with snow being churned up from the ground. From here the stars seemed so much closer, the sky so much clearer; the aurora looked so close it seemed like Delphine could reach up and touch it. The peak of the mountain was still some several hundred feet up, but the Blade had gone as high as she needed to. She knew she was being watched and turned to face her foe. Acajou took her hand, squeezing her fingers.

"Let's go."

Delphine trailed Acajou into the clearing, her movements instinctively becoming more subtle; she struggled to keep her composure and not go charging past the Dovahkiin with her sword drawn. He was _right there_, a silver silhouette against the navy blue sky, white as the snow perpetually covering the Throat of the World. Perched on the wreck of an intricately carved stone wall, long neck hanging low, Paarthurnax regarded them both with an air of regal patience, waiting for them to draw quite close before he raised his head a fraction and huffed steam into the air.

"_Drem yol lok."_

Acajou turned and beamed at Delphine. "He said hello," she said.

"Really. I didn't hear him." Delphine's heart pounded in her ears but it was drowned out by the sound of the dragon's steady, deep breathing. His eyes didn't leave her form for a second; the feeling sent shivers crawling down her back and legs. This dragon was a slaughterer second only to Alduin. This dragon had killed and tortured for no reason other than the fact that he was stronger than all of his victims and his nature demanded that he lord this power over humanity. Men and women, children and infants, pulled apart by his teeth, his claws; burnt by his fire.

"Dragons are hard to understand sometimes," Acajou informed her knowingly, "but it gets easier if you listen really closely." She looked up at Paarthurnax with such affection in her face that Delphine felt queasy.

"This is Delphine," she told him; his head remained level, his eyes fixed on the Blade's face. "She's my friend and she's come here to talk to you."

Couldn't the Dovahkiin see how dangerous this was? How foolish? Hatred for the Greybeards boiled up inside of the Blade and her hands balled into fists. This _nonsense _was going to end. Delphine didn't care if she lost her life in the act— she was going to do her duty as a Blade.

"You look a little scared." Acajou stepped away from Paarthurnax, her cheeks flushed with the cold. "Don't worry. I promise, he will not hurt you."

With a firm shove with one hand, Acajou pushed Delphine towards Paarthurnax, smiling at the friendship she was creating.

_Now, _Delphine's body told her, her hand already moving towards her scabbard, closing on the hilt of her sword. Her eyes were fixed on the throbbing pulse under his jaw; she could already envision his blood staining the ground, melting the snow. In her mind, he was already dead, the Greybeards were only powerless old men on the top of a mountain, and the Dragonborn was a true dragonslayer that would lead the Blades to their former glory. It would all start with this dragon's death. Let Acajou be upset with her now. If only she could just provoke Paarthurnax into attacking them, proving that all dragons could not be trusted.

Placing the heel of her hand on the tip of her hilt, she threw all of her weight into one mighty thrust forwards. All of her breath was expelled in one great rush, hoping with her entire heart that her blade would strike true and she would make her warrior ancestors proud.

Acajou was desperately speaking the Voice again and Delphine thought, '_it's too late', _just as a human form instantly appeared directly between the point of her blade and Paarthurnax's throat. Delphine had just enough time to blink before her sword buried itself to the hilt through Acajou's upper torso, entering her shoulderblade and punching through the skin just underneath her opposite collarbone.

For one terrible second the world around them was silent. The snow and the wind ceased their incessant, blustery whistling in Delphine's ears and she could hear, to her dismay, the little gasp of surprise that escaped the Dovahkiin's mouth. The moment seemed to last forever, long enough for Delphine to count the individual, star-shaped flakes of snow stuck in Acajou's short hair and notice the first, slow drops of blood from her nose that soon became an uncontrolled stream.

"Delphine." She sounded more puzzled than mortally wounded and she looked down at the blade erupting from the skin above her breast with her mouth twisted in thought. "You promised."

The Blade had no answer for her and, perhaps for the first time in her life, a needle of guilt stabbed into her heart. Her hands squeezed tighter around the hilt of her sword. "Idiot," she breathed.

Paarthurnax reared his head back and thundered a roar that nearly burst Delphine's eardrums. In her subconscious, she somehow knew that he was addressing her, and she feebly wished that he would kill her quickly. She knew that she didn't deserve to be granted the mercy of death even by a creature as foul as a dragon. She'd just struck through the Dovahkiin. What would Esbern say? She had just killed the saviour of Tamriel.

Two impossibly strong hands seized her by the backplate of her armor and yanked her backwards. The back of her head smashed into the ice-hard ground and she hissed, curling into a reflexive ball, choking back nausea. When she blinked the stars and snow out of her vision, she turned her head to see that Acajou had sunk to one knee on the crimson ground at her feet and that Paarthurnax stood close by her, tattered wings half-opened, his head almost pressing against her side. The air around them both was humming; Delphine guessed that was the dragon way of whispering to someone. Before she could stand up, a dark figure blocked her view.

"What have you done?" Arngeir's voice was beyond fury. "Barbarian! You have killed us all!"

_How did he get here so fast? _The snowy rock beneath her bucked once, twice, and she felt herself slipping downwards, into a fissure in the ground that grew larger with each one of the Greybeard's strangled words. Reaching down and hauling her up by the collar of her armor, Arngeir held her over his head, her feet dangling off of the ground.

"You do not even deserve to go to Oblivion for what you have just done," he said. Delphine felt a trickle of something warm and wet slide out of her ear, realizing it was blood. "I should have guessed that the Blades' bloodthirsty natures could not be curbed by even the Dovahkiin. When Alduin consumes this world, it is my wish that he vomits your soul out into the next world as something to be reviled and hated!"

"She got in the way," Delphine ground out. "If you hadn't brainwashed her into the thinking Paarthurnax was _good_, this never would have happened! You didn't teach her the truth until it was too late! You are at fault just as much as I am!"

The hands holding her up by the throat trembled. Delphine managed to crane her neck and look into Arngeir's shadowed face. His eyes streamed tears. With a careless movement of his arms, he sent her soaring in an arc through the air to crash to the ground again. She managed to protect her head this time and struggled to her feet as soon as she was able. The guilt was threatening to overwhelm her. She had to talk to Acajou. As soon as she limped forwards, however, Arngeir was standing before her, blocking her way to the dragon and the human he was protecting.

"She needs help," Delphine snarled. "Get _out _of my way. I can fix this."

"She is beyond help." Somewhere above them, a small avalanche of snow rolled off of the western peak of the mountain, shaken loose by his Voice. "She was dead as soon as you first spoke to her."

"Look, old man, stupid accusations aren't going to help _any _of us right now! Just get out of my way!"

_"Yol tor shul!"_

Delphine had heard that Shout before. Fire breath. When Arngeir pronounced the first syllables she felt a cold wash of acceptance, all of the fight going out of her. Death seemed so easy right now. She closed her eyes and held her arms out, ready to be bathed in the flames-

-and felt nothing but the wind. No, not wind. Breathing.

"_Enough, Arngeir."_

The voice burned like fire in the air and rattled her whole body, filling her with a feeling she couldn't quite place—something between complete terror and overwhelming awe. She knew it was Paarthurnax even before she opened her eyes but she was still surprised to see that the dragon had thrust his head into the path of the fire Shout and had taken the brunt of the attack for her. He turned to regard her with milk-white eyes, the flames still licking at the snow-silver scales on his face.

The blood had drained entirely from Arngeir's face and he stumbled back a few steps, horrified for losing control, but his dovah master looked only at Delphine. She couldn't kill him now, even if she tried. His ancient gaze pinned her to the spot, deadening her senses.

"_Watch_, _kriid_." His voice seemed to come from the beginning of time itself; her head felt like it was splitting in two. She hadn't known that dragons could actually speak so that she could understand_. _"_Behold what must be done to correct your mistake, born of your hatred and intolerance of that you do not understand."_

He arched his neck over Acajou and opened his mouth.

_"Sil dir vo."_

It sounded like a prayer, a heartfelt wish, rather than a Shout. There was no shockwave through the air, no physical manifestation of what the words meant but Acajou's slumping form suddenly straightened; she fixed her eyes on Paarthurnax and her mouth opened, streaming red.

It started in small ribbons, thin enough to be spiderwebs, floating up from beneath Acajou's skin to weave lazily around her body, illuminating her drooping eyes and the sword in her breast. It looked like Sahloknir's soul after he had died and, for one breathless moment, Delphine thought that Acajou was already dead; that Paarthurnax had said something to her to send her painlessly to Sovngarde. The golden and purple threads grew in their intensity and size until Acajou's body was completely engulfed in light too bright to look at directly; until it seemed like the entire Throat of the World was made of gold. Delphine covered her eyes with her hands and trembled despite herself. Beside her, Arngeir shielded his face with his sleeve, his anger replaced by awe.

Gradually, the light faded again, and its warmth was replaced by chill winds. Bereft, Delphine dropped her hands, blinking and shivering as she looked at the place where Acajou was.

Her body lay awkwardly on the ground, motionless, still as death. Her skin had taken on the pallor of stone and her eyes were half-open- but that wasn't what made Delphine's heart skip a beat.

Standing directly above the Dovahkiin's silent form, pine tree green and looking, Delphine thought, as baffled as anything without a human face _could _look, was a dragon.

* * *

_Oops! I promise the next chapter will be more light hearted, hahah. Please let me know how you like the story so far! Many thanks to Thug for betaing, and thanks to br, MadameHyde, Chadam, and HowAboutThisForAName for reviewing!_

_kriid = slayer  
_


	4. Birthday

_Skyrim and all related characters and situations belong to Bethesda._

* * *

**The Road to Kynesgrove**

IV: Birthday

"That's Acajou?"

A small crowd had gathered in High Hrothgar's courtyard. It was full daylight now and the sun had melted some of the ice that seemed to have formed on Delphine's very bones. Still she shivered, sitting on the stone steps with her arms wrapped around her torso and her teeth chattering. Arngeir stood next to her, his robes billowing in the wind, arms protected in his wide sleeves. The three remaining Greybeards stood in a silent group behind them, gazing out across the snow-blanketed ground at the two conversing dragons, their bodies filling the courtyard like an overflowing cup.

Delphine knew what Paarthurnax looked like by now, his spiny, ancient form unmistakable no matter how snow-blind she was. But the other dragon— dirty emerald green, bracing forward on marbled wings while its hind talons raised and lowered in the snow, like an impatient horse stamping its foot, and the leaf-shaped fin on its tail scraping against the ground— could not _possibly _be—

"Indeed it is," Arngeir interrupted her thoughts, his voice solemn. "But if we are to believe what our master Paarthurnax told us, then we face a troubling circumstance indeed."

Paarthurnax, followed by the green dragon crawling down the mountain like a lizard, had carried the Dragonborn's body carefully back to High Hrothgar and was waiting for Delphine and Arngeir when they finally made it back to the monastery. The other Greybeards had taken Acajou's body and, after removing the excess protruding parts of Delphine's sword from Acajou's shoulder and chest, laid her upon one of their stone beds and bandaged around the blade as best they could. They met Arngeir and Delphine at the door with the news that she was still breathing but totally unresponsive to voice, touch, and pain.

"_It is because that is only her kopraan," _Paarthurnax had told them."_Her consciousness lies within her soul." _He turned his head to look at the green dragon huddled beneath the arch of the gate that led back up to the Throat of the World, unsure of how to exactly maneuver its body around the rocks and boulders surrounding the path. _"The Shout takes a joor sil and makes it…how you say…nahlaas. Solid. Kopraan and sil have become the same thing. I do not need to tell you how dangerous this can be."_

"So you've trapped her soul inside of a dragon?" Delphine had asked.

"Surely you cannot be that stupid," Arngeir had said derisively. "The Dovahkiin's soul _is_ a dragon. Acajou is a dragon wearing a human's face. Her true form is the one you see before you."

Now the two dragons were talking, their voices too low-pitched for her to hear. After a moment more of staring, Delphine laid her head on her folded forearms. She felt tired, tired and old, older than she had felt in years. Every time she thought back to what she had done, her entire body rebelled, seizing up with pain. Arngeir's words came back to her. _What have you done?_

"So, how do we fix this?" Her voice was dead.

Arngeir was silent for a long time. "I do not know," he finally admitted. "The Shout that Paarthurnax used is entirely foreign to me. I am not sure how or why Acajou's body continues to breathe or for how long it will remain doing so. I assume that it will not continue forever, in which case we must figure out how to reunite body and soul before one, or the other, perishes."

Delphine winced.

"Of course," Arngeir continued, "I do not believe that is your issue to deal with, since you are only concerned with taking lives instead of saving them."

"Stow it, old man." Delphine narrowed her blue eyes at the hooded figure next to her. "Tell me, what's your brilliant solution? Wandering around the monastery and meditating?"

"Our way of life dictates harmony and inner tranquility in the face of all adversity." Arngeir folded his arms across his chest. He sounded like he was reading from a scroll.

"Harmony and tranquility aren't going to change Acajou back into a human," Delphine said roughly. "This requires action—"

"It does indeed," Arngeir interrupted; the ground shook very faintly under their feet. "It requires action, not murder, which is why you are welcome to make yourself scarce at any time you deem fit. The Dragonborn has many allies that would give their lives for her well-being. It would take no stretch of the imagination to assume they would assist her in her hour of need."

"I am not a murderer!" Delphine's voice cracked through the freezing air. "I do not kill indiscriminately. I save people from the likes of you and _him_!" She stabbed her index finger at Paarthurnax. "Tell him to change her back and I will gladly take my leave of you."

"_I cannot."_

The voice was heavy, deep, filling Delphine's head with the same sensation she got when she went swimming and dove down to the bottom of the river. Both dragons, apparently having finished their conversation, were looking at the group of arguing humans. Paarthurnax dropped his head so he was staring down his muzzle at Delphine. His breath warmed Delphine's face and stirred her hair.

"_I cannot because I do not know how."_

"Great," Delphine muttered. Even Arngeir seemed surprised.

"_There may indeed be a way to return the Dovahkiin to her joor form, but there is no Thu'um to undo what I have done. This Shout is used when there is volaas, very little hope for the afflicted. Usually the body dies not long after the sil has become its own entity."_

Behind him, the green dragon— that _couldn't _be Acajou—fluffed its wings out and wandered away. Its talons struck against the courtyard's flagstones with a sound like knives being sharpened. It looked lost and, when it raised its nose to the sky, Delphine caught a glimpse of the cruel face, the wide-open eyes. If Acajou was really in there, what was she thinking?

They all watched the blood dragon thoughtfully approach the ledge, craning her neck to peer down at the world below. Her haunches shifted, as a cat's does before it pounces; her wings half-opened as if to fly. At the last moment she seemed to change her mind, but her precarious sense of balance betrayed her. With an undignified squawk she tumbled over the edge. The mountain rumbled under their feet. Borri and Wulfgar made as if to run to the edge to see if she was all right, but they stopped when Paarthurnax showed no alarm and continued speaking, his deep voice tinted with dry humor.

"_You must remember that, for now, she only exists as a soul. Until a way can be found to reunite body and soul, you must always keep her safe. She is pogaas sahlo. If she is killed in this form, she will be lost forever."_

Borri leaned close to Arngeir and whispered something in his ear. One of the stones under Delphine's feet split neatly down the middle. Arngeir nodded encouragingly.

"A wise idea. We will fetch Einarth and all four of us will pour our energies into stalling time for Acajou's body with the Slow Time Shout. We will keep up a continuous field around her body so that it does not perish before she finds a way to undo what our master Paarthurnax saw fit to do." He turned to the silver dragon and bowed low. Paarthurnax returned the gesture with an elegant movement of his head.

A great clamoring could be heard from the mountainside below them: flapping wings, falling rocks, and frustrated growls interrupted the heavy mood pervading the courtyard. Finally, the crested green periscope of Acajou's head popped into view, teeth securely fastened to the edge of the platform she had fallen off of. With a few more scrambled pumps from her wings, she hauled herself back onto solid ground and crawled back towards the group, mouth open, a peeved expression in her yellow eyes.

Delphine felt suffocated, surrounded by enemies. These men were willing only to stall the inevitable instead of doing something to help. Their dragon leader didn't have any advice to give them except to tell them that Acajou's body would die soon, so they had better hurry. If the future of Skyrim was left in the hands of these imbeciles, they'd all sit in a circle and meditate while Alduin destroyed the world around them. She shouldered past the monks behind her and headed for the door.

"_My monks will do their part to undo your action," _Paarthurnax said, his voice seizing her step. She turned to look up at him, her heart fluttering. "_It is only fair that you work to save Acajou as well."_

"She is nothing but a bigot and a fiend," Arngeir said, loud enough for them all to hear. "We do not need her help."

"You heard the man," Delphine spat. "You don't need me. I'm leaving."

"_The Dovahkiin needs a kaal, Blade. Despite Arngeir's anger, you must work together to make Acajou whole again. She cannot be left to fend for herself against those who would take her life."_

"Like the Blades," Arngeir ground out. Delphine ignored him.

"She's a _dragon _now. I think the world needs to be protected from her, not the other way around!"

"_Geh, she is dovah, but she is also sil. If she is attacked, her sil loses strength. A single sil golz poses great danger to her. If you will not work with us, you must find someone who will. Take Acajou to her fahdon that will be willing to save her, and thus save Keizaal."_

Casting a critical eye over the group facing her down, Delphine gathered her courage and lifted her chin. "This issue," she said, fighting to keep the waver out of her voice, "is no longer my problem. I do not help dragons. I _cannot _help dragons. I have not asked you to leave your mountain or take up arms against me. I have issue with your methods but I am not trying to persuade you to abandon them. Don't you dare ask me to abandon mine."

She turned on her heel and strode towards the monastery. "Good luck finding someone who knows how to turn dragons into humans."

* * *

Delphine was nearly all the way down the mountain before she folded to her knees on the sunlit ground and screamed into her hands. It was midday and the air was warm and full of birdsong; the foot of the Throat of the World contrasted vastly with its icy peaks. Still, she felt cold, colder than she had been when she had been ankle-deep in the snow and something like a sob was trying to force its way out of her throat.

Acajou was a dragon. The Dragonborn, the paramount dragonslayer, was a dragon, and it was all Delphine's fault. How could she show her face at Sky Haven Temple again? How was she going to explain to Esbern, to the initiates, that she had run a sword through their leader and now they were bound by oath to kill the very person they had sworn to protect. The instant solid ground seemed to form beneath the Blades again, it had crumbled, leaving them with nothing to cling to but themselves.

Building tears made her vision quiver. What was she going to tell Esbern?

There was a sudden crashing sound in the trees behind her, and Delphine jumped to her feet and whirled around, whipping her sword out of its scabbard. Dashing the moisture from her eyes, she spied several fully-grown trees that were in the slow process of falling, tumbling down the mountainside. Something moved in the emerald shadows. Something big.

And a dragon poked its head out from the dense foliage, looking guilty. It shook the leaves out of the scaled ridge crowning its head and pushed through the tangle of trees. It took a moment for Delphine to find the breath to speak clearly.

"What do you want with me?"

The dragon fixed its predator's eyes on her. "_It's me," _it said in a deep, echoing mockery of Acajou's voice.

The tension drained out of Delphine's body and she dropped her sword, her knees weak. "Idiot," she said without thinking. "You nearly scared me to death."

Acajou burbled and crawled onto the path. Being approached by a dragon still sent chills down Delphine's spine, and she stiffened, fighting her body's urge to flee.

"Stay back."

Acajou halted, her tail lashing back and forth, and settled down in front of the Blade, bracing herself equally with her wings and back legs. Cocking her head all the way to the side, she asked, "_Aren't you going to help me?"_

"Help you with what? Becoming human again? Of course not. Get out of my way."

She tried to put on a brave face and walk past Acajou, but when the dragon moved her head to block her path, she flinched.

"_I can't stay like this."_

"That's your problem, isn't it?"

"_Delphine—"_

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Delphine thundered, her voice breaking. "I'm a heartless barbarian, remember? You'd better go back to High Hrothgar before I strike you down. After all, my whole monstrous existence revolves around killing _innocent _dragons."

"_I don't want to."_

Scoffing, Delphine put her hands on her hips. "You'll be _safe _there, though. Why don't I just go tell one of your friends in Whiterun that you're a dragon now and that you need help?"

"_Paarthurnax told me to go with you."_

Delphine threw her hands up in the air. "I _told _you, I will _not_ have you dumped off as my problem to deal with! I am a dragon_slayer_, Acajou! It's my job to _kill _creatures like you. I will not break my oath just because you decided to be stupid and trade your life for that…atrocity on the mountain!"

The look in the green dragon's horizontally slitted eyes was baleful. "_It's your fault I am this way_," she said on the beginnings of a snarl. "_I took you up there because you promised—_"

"I don't care what I promised! Oaths are stronger than promises, Acajou, you _idiot_. How could the Blades and the Greybeards get along? We _kill _what they revere! And if you had an ounce of sense in that thick skull of yours, you'd turn tail and run right back up the mountain to your monk friends, who will sit there and tell you that you _have _to find a way to return to human form before Alduin returns from Sovngarde but won't lift a finger to help you. See how that works out for you. I'm finished."

She spun on her heel and stomped off down the hill, her boots slamming against rocks and dead twigs.

For a moment, there was silence behind her, followed by a cacophony of sounds; sliding scales, heavy footsteps, steady breathing. Acajou was following her.

"Get out of here. I mean it!" Delphine pointed a firm finger at the green dragon, scowling. "You _used _to be the Dragonborn, but you aren't any more. You are my enemy. Leave, before I kill you!"

She strode forwards, her hand going to her sword. The sail on Acajou's back folded and her tail thudded to the ground. The Blade set her teeth and flung her hands forward in a shooing motion.

Acajou ducked her head like a scolded dog. "_Delphine," _she said mournfully,"_it's me. I'm still me."_

Inches from the dragon's snout, Delphine halted her step. Sunlight filtering through the tangled leaves overhead cast everything in a leafy hue, making Acajou's hulking shape seem to be a part of the green shadows. Delphine could see the delicate webs of veins in her leathery wings and feel blasts of heat every time she breathed out. There was nothing left of Acajou in the terrible and powerful shape that stood before her, but every time the Blade looked at the dragon's face, she could feel the human Acajou's wide-eyed gaze on her, waiting, dimly hopeful— even if the eyes she was looking at now had horizontal irises and were golden as the sunrise.

Acajou exhaled at her, washing her with the smell of woodsmoke. Delphine deliberated her next move. She was ruined, either way. She had to face Esbern eventually, with or without Acajou in tow. Just as her hand listlessly closed on the hilt of her sword, an earth-shaking rumble issued from Acajou's stomach.

The Blade paused. "What was that?" she asked quietly.

Acajou turned her head to look at her scaled side. "_I'm starving!" _she wailed. Her body flattened to the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust in Delphine's face. She rolled onto her side and looked imploringly up at the baffled human. "_I didn't know you could _be _this hungry and still be alive!"_

Delpine was at a loss for words. Universally feared, destructive beyond reason, undiscriminating murderer— none of these usually suitable labels could be applied to the writhing wyrm in front of her. Doglike, maybe. Hungry, definitely. She hadn't considered what it would be like for a human to experience the hunger a dragon's empty stomach would produce. In this condition, Acajou could let her hunger get the better of her and go after livestock or villagers or Delphine herself. The Blade shuddered at the thought.

"Shhhh, shut up, calm down." Delphine tapped the toe of her boot none-too-gently against Acajou's nose. Her jaws snapped closed and her head jerked up, nostrils quivering. "We're too close to Ivarstead for you to be making this much noise."

The forest was hushed around them. The only sounds were the leaves whispering against each other overhead and the nearby river water surging over glistening rocks. Delphine hadn't heard a single goat bleat or elk whicker since Acajou had come tumbling through the brush. She had probably scared away all the wildlife from here to Riften.

"If you're coming with me, we'll have to be careful," she said, her decision wavering like a flame in the wind. Surely there had to be something she could do to reunite body and soul, like Paarthurnax had said. She had to try. She just had to break the news to Esbern without sending the old man into shock. "We'll keep to the woods and stick close to the river. Have you ever used fire to catch fish before?"

At the mention of fish, Acajou's head jerked off of the ground like it had been yanked by a string.

"_No," _she said, piqued. "_How do you do it?"_

Delphine turned to leave, waiting for Acajou to struggle to a stand before taking her first steps. "I'll show you, but we have to be extremely careful to avoid attracting any unwanted attention. Can you still Shout?"

"_I don't know. I haven't tried yet."_

Delphine almost wasn't surprised when Acajou suddenly inhaled behind her, chest swelling with the massive breath. The blast of heat that the Shout carried nearly singed Delphine's shirt straight off of her back and she instinctively hit the ground with her arms flailed over her head. Thick smoke washed over the path before rising into the air in a very conspicuous plume as the char-broiled, fully grown oak Acajou had aimed at crumbled to ashes and tumbled down towards the river, sending birds screaming in every direction.

Delphine was up in a second, and became perhaps the first person to punch a dragon squarely between the eyes and live to tell about it.

"You— you— what did I just say about unwanted attention!"

Acajou looked nonchalantly away from the burning trees, stretching her neck and nosing some snowberry bushes next to the path. "_They probably didn't hear anything over the sound of the river," _she said, trying to believe her own lie.

Delphine was moving in to smack her again when her sensitive ears picked up panicked shouts from the villagers below. She grabbed a handful of the fin-like protrusion on the side of Acajou's lower jaw and began running as fast as she could towards a deeper section of the woods, pulling the dragon after her. She cursed as she barreled into branches and through waist-high thorn bushes, letting the heavy foliage disguise the hulking form behind her as they fled the beaten path.

"_Are we going fishing now?"_

The Blade tightened her hand around Acajou's scales, their strange warmth permeating through her gauntlets. "We're going to see Esbern. If you live to make it that far."

* * *

_Thanks very much for reading! Please let me know how you like the story so far. Special thanks to Thug for betaing and keeping me straight, and many thanks to everyonesgonecrazy, MadameHyde, HowAboutThisForAName, Lo Zin, PineappleGrenade, Chadam, Mikey, and br for reviewing! You guys rock! _


	5. Salutations

_Skyrim and all related characters and situations belong to Bethesda._

* * *

**The Road to Kynesgrove**

V: Salutations

Travelling with a dragon was a lot more troublesome than Delphine had originally expected. Wild animals and bandits aside, it was exceedingly difficult to keep Acajou focused on their destination instead of grazing like a horse on every edible object in their path. Delphine hadn't known that dragons were omnivorous, but watching Acajou plow through a farmer's garden, cabbages and all, corrected her misconceptions. She almost started on the horses but when Delphine threatened to wake the farmer, she reconsidered. Once the Blade had shown Acajou how to attract fish by holding a burning branch over the water's surface at night, the Dragonborn hadn't wanted to leave the riverbank even under the threat of violence.

After the first sleepless night spent with a dragon sleeping a stone's throw away, Delphine found herself facing the predicament of how to wake Acajou up without startling her. She wasn't entirely sure that the Dragonborn had all of her senses under control and was thus operating under the assumption that she could be eaten or attacked at any given moment. Standing in the dark an hour before sunrise on their second day of travel with Acajou's sleeping grey form rising like a little hill in front of her, the Blade wracked her brain for ideas.

"Acajou," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Wake up. It's morning."

Nothing. No change in her slow, rumbling breathing and no movement of scales or wings. Delphine tried again.

"Hey. It's time to go." This time her voice was louder and she added a few rough nudges to the scaly neck with the toe of her boot for good measure. If Acajou's breathing hadn't been so loud Delphine would have thought that she was dead.

"Acajou. Breakfast time."

It was as if a switch had been tripped in Acajou's brain. Her golden eyes popped open and she immediately yawned steam-hot breath into the air. _"What's for breakfast?" _she asked as she unfolded and stretched herself from nose to tail. _"I don't smell anything cooking." _

Inwardly breathing a sigh of relief at her success, Delphine turned away and began to pack up her small camp. "That's because I'm not cooking anything," she said as she kicked dirt over dimly glowing coals of their fire. "Especially for you. How many elk would it take to fill the bottomless pit you call a stomach?"

"_Then why'd you say it was breakfast time?"_

"You didn't wake up when I called you. We don't have time to be lounging around in the wilderness. We still have another day of walking before we get to Sky Haven Temple and we can't afford to be slowed down now. I have no idea how long your body is going to stay alive, but if we're depending on the Greybeards to slow time or whatever they're doing, then we owe it to them to hurry up."

They left camp, Acajou's head hanging just above Delphine's shoulder. _"That was a dirty trick," _she griped. The sound was so human that Delphine cracked a smile for the first time in days.

That night, crouching by the fire, Delphine first made sure her bow and sword were within reaching distance of her bedroll before she settled in for the night. Her body, filled with aches in a thousand places from the day's worth of travelling, drank in the heat and relaxed bit by bit until she lost the pinched look around her mouth and the scowl that clouded her forehead. Beating the dust out of the tundra cotton-stuffed bedroll with the palm of her hand, she breathed deeply of the crisp mountain air, trying to ignore the apprehensive coil in her gut when her mind settled, yet again, on the fact that they would be at Sky Haven tomorrow and she'd have to come clean.

Feeding a few more pieces of kindling into the fire before sitting down on her bedroll and pulling her boots off, Delphine threw a glance towards her companion. Acajou was settled just outside the fire's flickering sphere of light, her legs tucked underneath her body and her wings folded in close. Her neck and head were black against star-filled night sky, and her eyes gleamed in the light of the moon. There was a yearning in her face and the way she held her head. Yearning for bloodshed and murder, probably.

"What does it feel like?" Feigning disinterest, Delphine flicked a few bits of twig into the fire, watching the sparks they tossed up when they landed among the coals. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Acajou look down at herself, as if she still didn't believe what form her body had taken.

_"Empty."_

Delphine snorted a laugh. "I'm not talking about your stomach." She crossed her arms behind her head and flopped onto her back, staring up through the wisps of light smoke at the stars.

_"I'm not, either. I feel empty even when I eat more than I can hold. It's like... ." _Acajou thrummed as she sought the word she was looking for. _"It's like needing to do something, but you've forgotten what it is that you need to do. It's a hunger for something that you can't eat." _

Her mouth settling in a stony line, Delphine craned her head backwards to lock eyes with Acajou. She knew what Acajou was talking about even if Acajou herself didn't. "I've only got one thing to say to you. If you start feeling that empty part of you get too big to stand, I want you to clear out and wait until you can control yourself. If you give me any reason to view you as a threat, I'll kill you."

The dragon yawned, her dagger teeth flashing in the firelight. _"Don't worry, Delphine. I'm still me." _

"Hmph." Delphine dropped her chin to her chest and stared into the flames, the river's hushed tones carrying her towards a deep, much-needed sleep. Acajou stared at Delphine's form with a hooded gaze. The empty, hungry thing inside her intensified for a moment before she was able to hold it beneath the surface of her consciousness again. Nevertheless, it was a while before she curled her neck and rested her head on the ground, shielding her face with the fan of her tail. Tucked into a nearly perfect circle of scales and spines, her breathing slowed and she slept.

* * *

The same trick worked on Acajou the second time, too.

"_Stop telling me it's breakfast time when you don't have breakfast!" _Acajou howled as they made their way through the valley between Serpent's Bluff Redoubt and Old Hroldan. The dawn sunlight hadn't quite pierced the valley floor, so the rocks and bushes and even the air had a murky blue quality to them. Delphine, ignoring the constant complaints, could see the Karthspire up ahead against the navy sky, and she swallowed hard in spite of herself. Suddenly the trip had been way too fast. She hadn't had time to prepare what she was going to tell Esbern.

When they came to the lake that surrounded Sky Haven Temple's island, Delphine waded into the water and began to swim with steady strokes towards the other shore. When she didn't hear Acajou behind her, she paused, treading water, and looked impatiently back.

Acajou's attention was fixed solely on a spot about a hundred feet from where Delphine now swam, her eyes fixed and wide, the crests on her head and back and tail fanned out to their full extent.

"_Delphine, look at the size of that fish!"_

"Yes, it's pretty big," Delphine said without looking. "Now get in here and come across with me."

"_I am going to go catch it and eat it." _The dragon scrambled down the rocky bank, talons knocking boulders out of the way. She made it all the way up to her shoulders in the river before Delphine could react.

"Hey! Wait—wait a minute. Get back here! There's no time to go fishing. We've got to get up to see Esbern before he wakes up the recruits for morning training."

Acajou sank up to the fin on her back, looking for all the world like a giant water snake. _"You lied to me about breakfast this morning, too," _she said, aloof in the knowledge that Delphine couldn't physically force her to come out. Plunging her head into the frothy current, she began to root around in the bottom weeds with her nose.

Fuming, Delphine churned the water with her arms, wet and sh ivering. "I didn't know souls could starve!" she barked at the hump of the dragon's back, barely visible above the water. Knowing she wouldn't get an answer, she kicked towards the shore, muttering under her breath as her shoes hit bottom and she rose, streaming water, out of the river. Sky Haven Temple was but a short hike away and she could, perhaps, run all the way there, find Esbern, and explain to him why they couldn't kill the blood dragon splashing around in the river before the recruits noticed anything.

"_Mmmllfffnn, rook!"_

Acajou had found her fish. Floundering towards dry land, she struggled to keep her teeth locked around her flailing breakfast, which was nearly five feet in length and doing everything in its power to get back to the river. Despite herself, Delphine was impressed; rarely had she seen fish that size in waters this shallow. With any luck, eating it would shut Acajou's hunger pains up and allow her to focus on something other than food for the time being.

"Stay here and eat it, if you can be quick about it," Delphine said. "I'll be right back down with Esbern. Whatever you do, don't make a _sound._"

Nervousness fueling her short run up the mountain towards the temple's entrance, Delphine ran through scenario after scenario in her mind. _Should I sit him down and explain the situation to him first? Or should I take him to see her and then tell him what happened? I need to make sure he's not armed and that the recruits are all asleep or none of this will work. What if he calls for them? I just need to tell him that this dragon isn't dangerous—but how can he believe that when I don't even believe it? _By the time she walked up the stairs into the main chamber, her head was spinning.

The temple was dark and filled with the chill of morning seeping in from the natural skylights in the rock ceiling. Thankfully, the recruits were still asleep; she could hear Sven's snoring from several rooms away. She didn't have much time to spare, though, as Esbern's footsteps on the stairs told her that he was on his way to wake them all up. Delphine sprinted to catch him, her heart thundering for an entirely different reason.

"Esbern! It's me!" she hissed from the bottom of the stairs. The footsteps halted immediately and began a cautious descent, as Esbern had evidently neglected to bring a torch to light his way. When his dark form appeared around the curve in the steps Delphine stepped up and took his hands.

"Delphine?" Esbern's soft voice was surprised. She couldn't see the expression on his wrinkled face but his next words were joyful. "I am glad to see that you are whole and safe. I fear that our new members have grown a little lazy in the days that you have been away; I am not as harsh a taskmaster as you. But please, tell me that you have returned successful? That Paarthurnax is dead?"

When she didn't answer right away, Esbern's shoulders sank. "Ah. Were you able to get up to the Throat of the World at all?"

"Yes. Acajou and I took a very…unconventional route, but we made it nevertheless."

"And were you able to raise your sword to Paarthurnax, or did our Dragonborn prevent you from doing so?"

A shudder wracked Delphine's frame. "She stopped me."

Gripping his hands as if his grip was the only thing keeping her on her feet, Delphine locked eyes with her lifelong friend. All of her apprehension melted into exhaustion and sorrow, and when she inhaled a shaky breath through her nose, Esbern passed his arms around Delphine's shoulders and drew her into a tentative hug.

"Delphine, where is Acajou?"

She couldn't tell him. She couldn't. She wanted to melt into the floor or go outside and tell Acajou to just bite her head off and end it all. Opening her mouth, not knowing what she was about to say, she was suddenly interrupted when the entire temple was flooded with the wall-rumbling roar of a dragon, so close that it seemed to be inside the room with them. Blasts of wind swirled down the skylights with enough force to send all of Esbern's books on the main table flying to the floor.

_If that's Acajou I'm going to kill her._ Delphine was off and running for the door before she realized it, and to her horror she saw that Esbern was pulling ahead of her. Distant shouts told her that the recruits were not far behind. Her hand had been forced. She had to come clean.

"Wait! There's something I've got to tell you!" she said as Esbern, not breaking his stride, nearly broke down the door to Sky Haven Temple's secluded entrance. The cavern echoed with their pounding footsteps as they sprinted towards the narrow passage that would lead them outside. "Don't go out there until I—!" Another roar interrupted her plea, drowning out her voice. Despite his age, Esbern put on speed and disappeared through the passage and into the open. Delphine burst out behind him into the new sunlight and blindly reached for the other Blade. Her fingers snagged on his tunic and she yanked back with all of her strength, feeling the fabric tear beneath her fingers. Esbern stumbled to a halt, looking down the slope of the path towards the river below. Breathing hard, Delphine looked over his shoulder, thankful for whatever sight stopped his charge until she saw what he was gaping at.

A large, half-eaten fish lay forgotten on the riverbank. Rolling in the river shallows, shining scales gleaming with water and blood, Acajou and a brown dragon a little larger than she was were locked in battle, wings pumping, talons tearing at each other's bellies. Acajou's teeth were fixed around the brown dragon's neck, right beneath his jaw, and the other was bellowing a stream of fire into the air. Sweeping her keen gaze over Acajou's form, Delphine was relieved to see that she hadn't yet been injured, but, gauging the desperation with which the brown dragon was trying to slash her stomach open, she wouldn't remain that way for long.

"By the Nine," Esbern breathed, his hand frozen on his sword hilt. "Have you ever seen such a thing?"

The brown dragon flopped to his side on the water, flapping his wings in great scoops to get away from Acajou's grip. She held on like a tick, her tail fanned out and her wings braced in the water. Delphine moved to help her, then turned to Esbern.

"I need you to trust me," she said, clutching his arm with shaking fingers. "Whatever you do, don't injure the green dragon. Please. I need to tell you something and you won't believe me and I am so sorry but the green dragon is—"

A loosed arrow screeched over their heads, fletching singing in the wind. Sven and Mjoll appeared from the rocks; the look on Sven's face was terrified and triumphant even as he reached for another arrow. Delphine was screaming for him to hold his fire even as the bolt found its way into Acajou's shoulder. Her head jerked to the side as she hissed in pain, her jaws loosening enough for the brown dragon to take flight, spraying her with mist.

"Acajou!" Delphine roared in spite of herself. If Acajou heard her, she didn't show it, and instead fled the river with a stumbling gait due to her injured shoulder. Delphine could see blood well from the wound as soon as she left the water, and something else, something she almost missed; a kind of wispy amber light, trailing up and away from the arrow shaft like a thread of smoke. She couldn't focus on it for too long, however, as the brown dragon was diving out the sky towards Sky Haven Temple. It landed with a rattling crunch on an outcropping of rock and leaned down to get a better aim at Sven and Mjoll. From the amount of blood pouring out of its neck from where Acajou had bitten it, Delphine figured the ensuing battle would probably be very short.

"Don't just stand there gawking at it!" Delphine shouted at a stunned Sven. Mjoll was already scrambling towards the dragon, Grimsever raised and ready to strike.

"You told me to hold my fire!" Sven shouted back at her, his voice cracking.

"Never mind what I said! I want you to kill the dragon _now!_"

The dragon raised its head and Shouted a spear of flame directly towards him. He dropped to the ground and curled into a terrified ball just as a shimmering wall of light appeared in front of him. When the flames struck it, they immediately dispersed, licking harmlessly into the air. Erandur appeared from the dark passage, his face grimly set but his eyes laughing. The tips of Sven's ears turned pink when he realized who had saved him.

Having reached the dragon, Mjoll began her assault, swinging Grimsever precisely and scoring the dragon across the bridge of its nose. Throwing its head up, it tried to buffet her off the cliff with its wings, but she ducked between the rocks, flinching when its tail came slamming down right in front of her, blocking her escape.

"Sven! Erandur!" Delphine's voice was as high as it could go. She swung her bow off of her back and nocked an arrow, aiming as true as her trembling hands would let her. Erandur moved a few quick steps forwards and clutched the air with one gloved hand. In an elegant gesture, he conjured a bound battleaxe with a wickedly sharp curved blade. Locking eyes with Sven, who was about to loose another arrow into the dragon's scales, Erandur smiled and, with perfect accuracy, hurled the battleaxe in a smooth arc towards the dragon. It buried itself in nearly the exact spot that Acajou had bitten, and the dragon blasted out a roar of pain that had Sven scrambling in the other direction. Mjoll, seeing her chance, leapt up and drove Grimsever upwards into the dragon's jaw, piercing through bone and muscle and effectively skewering the dragon's mouth shut.

Almost eerily silent, the dragon crashed to the ground, its eyes already glazing. Blood gushed over the rocks at Mjoll's feet as she worked Grimsever out of the dragon's head. She turned to Erandur, who fairly sauntered over to her, and beamed up at him.

"We killed our first dragon," she whispered, almost reverently.

"I know," he said, reaching down to grasp her hand and help her over the slick rocks. Behind them, Sven poked his head out from behind a large boulder, his eyes wide.

"It's dead?" he asked. A slow smile spread over his sweaty face. "It's dead! Pookmeyzol has felled his first wyrm!" His voice rose in triumph and echoed through the air.

Mjoll just shook her head and chuckled. Erandur, deciding against pointing out that he had saved Sven's backside, instead looked around, his angled eyes narrowed.

"Where's the other one?"

* * *

Delphine didn't even wait to watch the dragon die. As soon as Erandur had thrown his spectral battleaxe, she had taken off down the rocky slope, tripping, stumbling, praying to whatever Divine that was watching over her that she could make it in time.

She had lost track of Esbern.

Breathing raggedly, she sprinted towards the last place that she had seen Acajou, hoping that Acajou had been smart and stayed low or had hidden herself among the rocks, somehow, to avoid be found. If Esbern had already gotten to her, Delphine didn't know what she would do. He was more ruthless than her when it came to dragonslaying. If she had been cornered, Acajou wouldn't be able to get in a single word before he struck her down.

Her long strides and pumping arms brought her around a steep curve and down a short drop to the rocky shore, and that's where she nearly collided with Esbern, standing with his sword in one hand on a flat rock, watching a dark, irregular shape floating in the water. It took Delphine a moment to recognize it as the very top of Acajou's head; only her crest, eyes, and nostrils poked above the rocking waves. Seeing Delphine, she blew water droplets into the air and raised her head. Esbern made a strained, disbelieving noise in his throat.

"_Delphine." _Acajou's voice was very low and very careful. _"Please tell him to stop chasing me." _

Something halfway between a laugh and a sob rose in Delphine's throat. Acajou's head bobbed on the lake. A piece of seaweed was draped over her nose. _"I told him who I was but he tried to stab me anyway."_

"Delphine?" Esbern asked quietly.

Delphine ignored him. "What in the world were you doing to attract another dragon? Didn't I tell you to hide and make absolutely no noise, no matter what?"

"_He wanted to take my fish." _

"How about your shoulder? I saw that arrow go in pretty deep."

Acajou snorted into the water. _"It hurts, but I can still move my arm—ah—wing." _

The Blade's sign of relief seemed to come from the depths of her soul, and she put her hands on her knees and tried to slow her thundering heart. Esbern allowed the tip of his sword to lower into the mud and turned to her, his question written all over his face even before he voiced it.

"What have you done?"

* * *

_I'm very sorry for taking so long with this chapter! It's been an equally exciting/frustrating week, but I'm happy to get this chapter to you! Thanks very much to my loyal reviewers everyonesgonecrazy, HowAboutThisForAName, br, Chadam, Mikey, Lo Zin, Madame Hyde, and Pineapple Grenade for reviewing, and even though Thug didn't review this chapter (and it will show because it will have a million errors), I still owe it to him for keeping me straight! Let me know what you all think! Thanks for reading! Next chapter will definitely be here by either Saturday or Sunday._


	6. Doctor

_Skyrim and all related characters and situations belong to Bethesda._

* * *

**The Road to Kynesgrove **

VI: Doctor

Sven was drunk out of his mind.

He couldn't be blamed, however. Any small-time bard from tiny Riverwood would have his eyes boggled out of his head at the sheer vastness of Markarth. The grand Dwarven stone structures that pierced the sky, the great waterwheel churning by Cidhna Mine, the people haggling and shouting in the marketplace; all the sights and sounds of the great city buzzed in his head until he was well hammered long before he threw back his first tankard of mead at the Silver-Blood Inn.

"I can't b'leeve we sold those dragon bones for all that gold," he shouted at Mjoll from a seat away. She winced mildly and sipped at her ale, grateful that the low roar of evening customers somewhat concealed the Blade's voice.

Erandur drummed his fingers on the bar, looking out of the corner of his eye at Sven's cherry-red cheeks and watery eyes. He snorted softly on a laugh, feeling the weight of the gold hanging from his belt. "It is surprising how much a merchant will pay for a bunch of bones," he said softly. "Makes me wonder if he actually realized those were real dragon bones. We could have grabbed those off of the side of the road, for all he knew."

Mjoll smiled. "Things like that happen all the time in large cities like this one. Poverty and extravagance happen in equal quantities. Next time we come here we should test your theory."

"We could have had more to sell if we had gotten that second one—hey, hey! Sven! Get back here!"

Sven had stumbled off to accost the bard in front of the roaring fire in the huge hearth that dominated the back wall of the inn. Ogmund, brandishing his lute like a sword, gave Sven a decent blow across the face when the latter insulted his rendition of "The Dragonborn Comes".

Mjoll gave Sven's crumpled form a disinterested glance and turned back to Erandur. "I was wondering where it went, too," she said. "Probably hasn't gone far. I wonder if we won't run into it on the way back? That would be exciting!"

"Small chance of that happening." The Dunmer laced his fingers together and put his elbows on the bar. "The countryside is swimming with mercenaries and Forsworn. If that dragon even thinks of landing anywhere in the Reach, it'll be swarmed and destroyed."

Mjoll laughed dryly. "Ah, I love this part of Skyrim. Even dragons aren't safe here."

Together they lifted their tankards and toasted their victory over their first kill.

* * *

In the end, it took all of five minutes to tell Esbern the details of what had transpired on the Throat of the World. He remained quiet as Delphine relayed the tale into her empty tankard in front of the feeblest fire she had ever lit. Sky Haven Temple was empty save for the two of them and Acajou, who was fluttering around outside, still skewered with the arrow, sticking her head through the skylights and trying to listen to their conversation. As soon as Delphine had convinced Esbern of Acajou's identity, they had sent the three recruits to Markarth to sell the bones and scales of the dragon they had butchered. Unlike Sahloknir, this dragon's soul hadn't gone swirling into the air and into Acajou. Delphine was too tired to even wonder what that meant.

"So that's it, then," Delphine finished, her voice rough. "Our Dragonborn's an actual dragon now. Isn't that funny?"

Esbern's gnarled hands were folded in his lap. The way he was sitting made him look like he was made of matchsticks and could break apart at any second. "There is nothing at all humorous about this situation. Skyrim's salvation is in jeopardy because of the both of you."

"It was her idiot idea to introduce me to Paarthurnax. Blame her for what happened."

"You didn't think it through either, Delphine." Dropping his head into his hands, he heaved a heavy sigh through his nose. "How it happened is beyond worrying about, in any case."

"So you've never heard of this soul-to-body Shout before?"

Esbern shook his head. "I can't think of what purpose it would be used for. It almost sounds like something a human would have created in order to truly kill a dragon." Esbern's forehead clouded with the thought. "But if this is the case, why wasn't it used in conjunction with Dragonrend? Perhaps it only works on certain souls, or perhaps—"

"Esbern!" Delphine snapped. "Conjectures will get us nowhere. I need answers, now, or else we're all going to be in a world of hurt. Do you have any idea of who to go to?"

"All of my research up until now has indicated that Alduin is the only dragon that can enter Sovngarde," Esbern said, ignoring her and staring at the blank wall over the tips of his fingers. Delphine tapped her dagger on the table, flaking the wood off splinter by splinter. The fire in the hearth snapped and popped cheerfully but the sound grated on her ears and her patience. "If this is the case, Acajou is now useless to us. We've lost our chance."

Delphine slammed the point of her knife a good two inches into the table. "Esbern, quit with the melodrama, all right? If I thought this situation was hopeless I wouldn't have come to you with questions about how to fix it. I should think you of all people would know the most about dragon lore. Think hard. Do you remember reading anything about people being turned into dragons?"

"If we had enough time I might be able to find some sort of answer in some of the volumes I have found here." His face twisted. "We may be indebted to the Greybeards for buying us time with Acajou's actual body, for we will not gain any leniency from the World Eater."

He stopped suddenly, the wrinkles on his forehead gathering together. "We can't let the recruits know that we are helping a dragon. They are too new to the mission for us to risk exposing them to wyrms' deceptive behavioral patterns. Whatever we must do—if there is anything we _can _do—you and I must do it alone."

There was silence in the room for the span of a few heartbeats. Then, from the cavernous main room, a plaintive whine echoed down from one of the skylights. _"Delphine, can you help me get this arrow out of my shoulder? It hurts!"_

Wordlessly, Esbern stood up and moved over to the fire. A small cast iron pot hung on a peg over the flames. Lifting the lid, he used a hook to scoop out a tangle of cotton cloths from the hot water. Wringing each of them out, ignoring the heat, he draped them over his arm and then grabbed a green bottle off of the hearth.

"Use these to clean the wound," he said as he piled the cloths into Delphine's arms. "And this—" he held out the green bottle, "—is a poultice. Use as much of it as you can."

When Delphine reached for the bottle, he held it away from her.

"If you can't help her, you will have to kill her."

Delphine said nothing.

"You know that, don't you?" His voice was harsh. "If she cannot be returned to her human form, you must kill her."

The Blade reached out and yanked the bottle of poultice from her friend's hands. "If she's stuck as a dragon, it won't matter if she's killed or not," she said shortly. "The world will end anyway."

* * *

It was close to nightfall when Delphine pushed open the courtyard doors and jogged onto the Blades' training grounds. Soft sunset light fell on the straw-stuffed mannequins and the brightly painted targets that surrounded the clearing. Usually when Delphine had troubles weighing on her mind, she would come out here and strike the mannequins until her wrists burned or shoot arrow after arrow into the targets until her quiver was empty, but tonight her arms were full of clean cloths and a bottle of poultice instead of weaponry.

Acajou was a dark lump curled up on the flat stone roof above the courtyard doors. Hearing Delphine grumbling her way over to her perch, she was only able to raise her head a fraction off of the ground before the Blade used her snout as a stepping stone to get to her injured shoulder. Holding back a sneeze, Acajou craned her head over Delphine's as she dumped her armload of medical supplies on the ground.

"_What have you got there?" _

"Medicine to heal your idiot shoulder," Delphine said crisply. She looked at the angry flesh around the protruding arrow shaft and wiped her palms on her tunic. "First we've got to get this arrow out of you."

Flexing her wing, Acajou moved a step or two away. _"I think I will be just fine if you leave it alone," _she said warily, turning to hide her shoulder against the sheer rocks. Delphine cut her a fierce glare.

"Do you want that thing to swell up with infection and kill you? Get back over here." When she saw Acajou's brief appraising glance up the slope she reached out and rapped her knuckles on the dragon's nose. "None of that! You're not worming your way out of this."

Begrudgingly offering her flank for the Blade's scrutiny, Acajou looked moodily off into the distance as Delphine measured exactly how she was going to remove the arrow. It had gone in relatively straight, but for all the arrowhead's honed sharpness, it had not penetrated too deeply into the muscle. In the end she just grabbed a cloth and, bracing it against the bloody scales, gave a sharp merciless yank on the shaft. She was rewarded with the arrow coming out cleanly and a clout to the head with a leathery wing. As she struggled to apply pressure with the cloth to the heaving shoulder beneath her hands, she noticed, like before, a small trail of golden light seeping from the wound, like sunlight slipping through a cloud. It leaked through the cloth and her closed fingers and dissolved in the air in the span of a heartbeat.

Acajou must have seen it, too, for she stilled her flailing and stared fixedly upwards, searching for the light that had gone. Delphine busied herself with halting the bleeding, trying to quell the unwelcome worry in her heart.

"How do you feel?" she asked brusquely.

As if being broken out of a trance, Acajou's head snapped down, wide eyes blinking. Delphine didn't consider herself an interpreter of dragon facial expressions, but she knew fear when she saw it. Uncomfortably she gave Acajou's side a pat or two with her free hand. "Don't worry about it. It's nothing."

The crest on Acajou's back flattened fully against her spine.

Delphine worked in silence, patting Acajou's shoulder until she could think of something reassuring to say.

"Esbern and I were talking," she began haltingly, "about how to get you back to normal. He thinks he can find answers in his books, and while I have no doubt that he can, that process will be very…slow. Esbern loves to learn new lore, you see, and while I appreciate his help, we don't exactly have time for him to search through centuries of stories. Do you know anyone else that could help you? Someone you've met that knows about dragons?"

A sort of humming noise issued from Acajou's throat. She tilted her head up, down, and sideways, looking more than ever like a confused lizard. _"Farengar!" _she finally thrummed. _"Farengar, in Whiterun. He is always saying that he finds dragons to be fascinating. I want to go see him." _

Delphine pursed her lips. "I wish you would have remembered this _before _we left High Hrothgar," she said curtly. "I suppose it can't be helped, though. All right. We'll leave for Whiterun first thing in the morning."

She lifted the cloth away. The wound had clotted over and had formed a raised ledge just above the joint of Acajou's wing; she had enlarged the wound when she had pulled the arrow out, and although the cut was long as Delphine's hand, it was clean. Hesitatingly feeling around it, she noticed the scales were hot to the touch, but she didn't know if that was infection setting in or just Acajou's normal temperature—well, normal for a dragon, at least.

Not having the slightest clue of how to treat these kinds of injuries on either man or beast, she reached down with one hand and uncorked the bottle that Esbern had given her, pouring the contents into the gash like it was an open mouth. Acajou squirmed.

"_Hey! That stings!" _Her head came around reflexively and crashed into Delphine's side, sending her stumbling to her knees.

"Watch it!" Delphine snapped. "I'm trying to help!"

"_You're hurting me! You're going to make that light come out of me again!"_

"Good! Maybe that'll teach you to keep still."

Making an angry noise in her throat, Acajou brought her head right up to Delphine's body, a glare in her strange eyes._ "I'm telling you to stop hurting me, Delphine." _Her voice was almost lost on the rumble of her growl, and she opened her mouth, revealing just the tips of her teeth. Delphine felt fear creep into her spine and knees before she reached into the dragon's mouth and grabbed the pink forked tongue, yanking it forwards and twisting it roughly.

"Don't you ever bare your teeth towards me again if you want to live, _dragon_." Her voice was ice. "You forget that you and I are enemies until you become a human again. Until then, I will strongly advise you to watch your attitude around me. Soon I'm going to stop using my fists and start using my sword. Do you understand?"

She let the slimy, writhing in her hand go, and Acajou flicked it in and out of her mouth, testing to see if the muscles were pulled. Then she opened and closed her hand a few times, as if tasting something.

"_Delphine," _she whispered with a sort of awe. _"I can smell things with my tongue!"_

The Blade continued to pack the poultice into Acajou's shoulder, her lips white. Acajou, tongue lolling, nosed inquisitively at Delphine's back.

"_You smell tasty."_

Delphine tensed, and then poured a handful of the poultice into her palm and stuck it under Acajou's nose. "It's not me, it's this stuff."

Nose quivering, Acajou craned her head around as far as it would go and stuck her tongue out again, waving it around in the air like an antennae. _"This smells tasty," _she amended. _"Can I eat some?"_

"No, you may not eat some, you glutton." Delphine picked up more cloths and wiped her hands clean, noting how well the poultice matched with the hue of Acajou's scales. "I guess that's all I need to do. Don't try to lick it or move your shoulder too much tonight. The recruits won't be back from Markarth until tomorrow afternoon and we'll be gone by then."

Acajou settled herself into a scaly circle, gingerly fanning out her injured wing before tucking it close to her side. _"It feels better," _she said. _"You did a good job. Thank you." _

Folding the cloths over one arm, Delphine didn't bother answering. Her descent back to the courtyard felt like a retreat. Even now her fingers itched to draw her sword.

"We leave tomorrow at dawn," she called up to the dragon. "You'd better be ready and awake by then."

Without waiting for a reply, she slipped back into the temple, letting the door bang shut behind her.

By now the sun had long since set. Stars dotted the dark lavender sky, and the blowing wind was warm, relaxing. Even the chirping insects sounded drowsy in the heavy night. Nesting alone on top of Sky Haven, Acajou listened to the wind and the crickets and tried not to be scared of the strange ache in her shoulder that seemed to be deeper than just physical pain. And then there was that sleeping part of her consciousness, the part that wanted to Shout the world to pieces and crush everything that stood in her way. She flicked out her tongue and her head burst with a barrage of information she didn't know how to process; the air was talking to her in words she didn't understand. It was just like being back on the Throat of the World, where her body wanted to fly but her brain didn't know how to do so.

Lately, there was very little about her life that she understood; becoming a dragon seemed to be par for the course she had been following ever since she had escaped Helgen. She was a seed caught in Skyrim's tumultuous currents, and even though she was often overwhelmed, she could do nothing but try to keep her head above water and brace for the next wave.

But the Dragonborn was nothing if not hopeful, and so she passed the mortal pain in her shoulder off as something to be ignored, suppressed the dragon's desire to conquer under indifference, and waited patiently in the darkness for the coming dawn.

* * *

_My sincerest apologies for the delay in posting this chapter. The only time I have to write this story is at work and last week was incredibly busy, since we had reduced manpower at the office. To make up for it, chapter seven will actually be posted THIS WEDNESDAY! Woot! :) As always, thanks so much to Thug (who did not get to beta this chapter either, eek!) and to my incredibly awesome and loyal reviewers Lo Zin, MadameHyde, everyonesgonecrazy, Madam Mikey, and Chadam! I am so thankful for each and every one of you. Please stay tuned for chapter six becuase it all gets more exciting from here!_


	7. Snapdragon

_Skyrim and all related characters and situations belong to Bethesda._

_Super-awesome gigantic mistake edited August 28, 2012. Haha. _

**The Road to Kynesgrove**

VII: Snapdragon

It occurred to Delphine some hours into their trip east that she had actually become comfortable with a dragon at her shoulder.

Well, not exactly _comfortable_. The feeling was more along the lines of unwelcome surprise that she had actually gone this long without killing one of her mortal enemies. Try as she might, even despite knowing that this creature was the Dragonborn, Delphine hadn't known that dragons could look and act so harmless. She had always assumed that dragons were ruled by their desires to hunt and kill and conquer, but seeing Acajou thudding along beside her reminded her ridiculously of a cow being lead by a rancher.

Their progress was straightforward but slow; in order to get to Whiterun they were taking the fastest route, which also happened to be the one that would have them out in the open for the next six hours or so. The only other habitation they would come across would be Rorikstead, and they were trying to give that town as wide a berth as possible so that no wandering villagers would chance upon a Blade and a dragon walking side by side like the best of friends out for a stroll. Still, Delphine was on edge, her eyes and ears constantly watching and listening for travelers—human or otherwise—sharing their road. Acajou, meanwhile, dropped her head to sniff flowers, pranced sideways around boulders, and reared back against the bright sky to beat the air with her wings whenever she had the chance.

"Whatever you're doing, quit it," Delphine ordered after three or so occurrences of these antics. "You're going to draw attention to us and if you get a hundred bounty hunters on our trail I will _not_ help you escape."

"_I am practicing flying," _Acajou said, coming down on the edges of her wings.

"You're practicing _flapping_," Delphine said. "I think flying is quite beyond you at this point."

"_Small steps," _Acajou huffed. _"How do you think I learned to fight with a sword?"_

"Judging from how you're acting, I believe you stood there with a sword in each hand and flailed your arms around like a lunatic." Delphine's lips curled in a sarcastic smile. "And they call you dovahkiin. It's amazing."

Acajou, grumbling, lowered her head so that her chin was almost touching the ground. _"I did not flail," _she griped. _"And I bet you looked just as foolish when you first picked up a sword."_

The Blade sniffed. "I most assuredly did not. I was born into a family of warriors and was raised to be one. I could split an arrow in half with another arrow at fifty paces when I was eight."

Acajou blinked. _"I don't believe you." _She walked on for a few paces. _"Could you really?"_

"I could indeed. I still can. If you point out a small target for me I could probably hit it."

The dragon raised her head, scanning the surrounding hills. Delphine's breath caught in her throat at how ferocious Acajou looked.

"_See that fallen tree straight ahead? There's a squirrel on it._"

Delphine looked. Two hundred or so yards away, a beech tree had fallen against one of its neighbors, held up only by the tangle of their branches. The trunk was covered in moss and mushrooms, and, barely visible, the little brown puff of a squirrel's tail could be seen twitching on one of the small branches.

Acajou watched, leaf-tail waving back and forth, as Delphine carefully unshouldered her bow and nocked an arrow. Her face set in a firm expression of concentration that enhanced the lines around her mouth and nose, and her fierce blue eyes opened wide as she drew the arrow back and sighted her target.

The very air seemed to still around them when she let go of the catgut string. Feather fletching singing, the arrow lanced a path straight through the squirrel's body, thudding into a trunk behind the fallen tree. The squirrel slumped where it had been crouched.

Without hesitating, Acajou bounded forwards, wings half-unfurled, neck outstretched. In a few leaps she had crossed the distance between herself and the tree and, with one snap of her jaws, swallowed the squirrel, tail and all. Delphine rolled her eyes and situated her bow over her back again. "You could have just told me you were hungry," she called, jogging to catch up. "We could have found an elk or something."

"_It was the first thing I saw." _Acajou's tongue flicked out. They fell into step again, leaves crunching under their feet. _"You are a good archer. I was never any good with that stuff when I was younger."_

"I can imagine your parents wouldn't want you near anything sharp or dangerous. Why you decided to specialize in heavy armor and hand-to-hand combat as Dragonborn is beyond me. You're Breton. Why not choose magic?"

"_I could ask you the same thing." _

"Yes, but I'm _good _at what I do."

Acajou was thoughtfully silent for a moment. _"I guess my parents never taught me to fight because they thought I'd never need to. My mother is an herbalist and my father is a guard in my hometown, which is very small. The most exciting thing that happens there is the pumpkin-eating festival that happens every winter."_

Delphine shook her head at the mental image of a human Acajou shoveling bowlfuls of cooked pumpkin into her mouth with a village cheering her on in the background. "So how did you end up in Skyrim?"

When she answered, Acajou's voice was low, sad. _"I got lost trying to get back home from Jehanna."_

"And that's it?"

"_That's it." _

Such a simple mistake cost her so much. One step in the wrong direction and suddenly she had an entire region calling her _dovahkiin_, demanding that she kill an immortal dragon in the midst of a great and terrible civil war. On top of that, she had lost her body and was trapped in a form that she could barely understand or control. Delphine's heart gave a little tug of sympathy.

"Acajou… ."

The scaly neck curved, the tapered nose tilted down, and her mysterious eyes fixed on the Blade expectantly. For the second time, Delphine wondered what was behind that expression, what she was keeping in her heart. Was she frightened? Did she know how great this whole expedition's potential for failure was?

Suddenly she heard murmuring, barely audible even in the quiet midday. Voices. Coming from over the hill they were cresting. Immediately dropping to a crouch, she waved Acajou behind her.

"Find someplace to hide," she hissed. "Quickly!"

"_But what about—"_

A stern glare from Delphine interrupted her question. Scrambling for cover, Acajou got one last look at Delphine drawing her sword before she dove over an outcropping of rocks and fallen logs and took cover as best as she could in the flitting shadows. It only occurred to her after she folded herself into a circle to wonder why Delphine had asked the dragon to leave so the human could protect her.

The Blade strode the rest of the way up the hill, carelessly swinging her sword, pretending to be lost in her own thoughts while her mind raced through a list of every outcome of this potential battle. When she saw that the voices belonged to a trio of lightly armored men sitting around a shoddily made campsite—bandits, by the look of them—she visibly relaxed. This would be easy. She might even be able to stroll right by them without being bothered.

"Oh-ho! What's this? A little old lady lost in the forest?"

_Guess not. _

All three were big, burly, red-headed Nords. Their bodies were stuffed into leather armor that had seen better days, and the leader of the group—the one who had accused her of being old—wore a steel warhammer at his hip. The other two expertly twirled daggers between their fingers that had, only seconds before, been clamped around tankards of ale. Delphine smiled thinly and raised her hands in submission.

"Please," she said, her voice quiet. "I am not looking for trouble."

"Aww, that's too bad," one of the dagger-men said in a syrupy voice. "We love trouble."

"If you let me be, I promise I will not report you to any guards that I come across."

The leader rolled his eyes under his bushy brows. "You can deal with this one, boys," he said indifferently, turning back to the fire. "I doubt she has much on her, anyway."

"Please," Delphine said as she readied her blade, choosing her first target before the word was even finished. They came menacingly towards her, in typical bandit fashion, backs bent, cruel smiles on their faces. She had often wondered why Skyrim's inhabitants had to be so ridiculously malicious to strangers. If they were anywhere else on Nirn, she could have told them she didn't have any septims on her person and they would let her be on her way. Nord criminals were stubborn to the point of stupidity.

"Hold still, grandma," the first man said a second before Delphine's sinewy arm snapped upwards and slashed him deeply across the chest. He looked down, puzzled at the amount of blood pouring from his useless armor. His partner let out a strangled yell and smashed his dagger against Delphine's sword, pushing her back a few paces down the hill. She parried his next blow but was struck in the face by his free fist.

"Boss!" he thundered. "This one's a tough one!"

Tumbling onto her back, she had to roll quickly to the side to avoid getting impaled by the man's slashing knife. She tasted blood and saw stars, but it was nothing she hadn't experienced before, and the man was a fool to think she'd go down that easily. A swift kick up into the man's groin earned her a forceful "oof!" from the bandit as he crumpled forwards. Bracing her sword hilt with her palm, she let the bandit fall straight into her blade, impaling him through the midsection. He coughed blood all over her chestpiece, his eyes already glazing over.

She didn't have time to enjoy her kill, however; the remaining bandit was sprinting towards her, his stealth blown by his furious war cry as he brandished his warhammer. The only problem was that her blade was still embedded in his friend's torso, and he would be on her by the time she pulled it out and stood to face him. She tensed herself in preparation for the inevitable blow, knowing he would only deal her superficial damage if her armor held up.

A sudden current of wind whipped her hair into her eyes and a silent shadow passed over her body. The bandit was only able to utter one short scream before getting cut off by the sound of teeth closing around bones, like someone breaking a handful of twigs. Delphine pushed the dead bandit on top of her to the side and sat up to see Acajou, wings fully outstretched, tail braced on the ground, her neck weighed down by the weight of the human body in her mouth. Her eyes were wild, seemingly staring at nothing, and gore dripped from her jaws in a crimson river. She shook her head and the bandit came apart like wet paper. Releasing him on a roar, she whirled on Delphine, looming over the Blade with animal hunger.

"Acajou!" Delphine snapped, even though her voice was shaking. "What in the name of the Nine Divines do you think you're doing, you _idiot?"_

Tenuous as her voice was, it caused Acajou to recoil and shake her head, spraying the bandit's blood in little droplets from her jaws. Delphine took the opportunity to pull her sword free and point it directly at the dragon in front of her, gripping the hilt so hard her knuckles were white under her gauntlets.

The blood dragon faced her again, her nose inches from Delphine's sword.

"_Delphine—"_

"What was that all about?"

"_I was helping." _A thread of panic tied the words together. _"I wasn't going to hurt you. It was just—"_

Delphine interrupted her with icy words. "I don't want to hear it. I told you to stay put." She sheathed her sword in a jerky, angry movement. "What would have happened if there had been more of them around? What if they had reported seeing a blood dragon heading towards Whiterun? Do you ever think before you act? One more incident like that and you're on your own. Do you understand me?"

She stalked off over the hill, giving the bandit's remains a little kick as she passed him. Acajou watched her leave. She swallowed, tasting copper. The clamoring thing inside of her head calmed down enough to allow remorse to wash through her, and she took off after Delphine as quietly as she could, scarcely putting her talons down too hard for fear of angering her companion.

"_Did I scare you?"_

Delphine's glare was sharp and glittering as a diamond. "Shut up."

Acajou tossed her head back and thrummed a laugh. _"I scared you!"_

"Acajou, Shor help me if you do not shut your trap I will skewer it closed!"

The emerald dragon's thrumming only intensified. _"Zu'u sahrot dovahkiin! In se jul!"_

There was a hidden intensity in the words, like an ocean riptide. They made Delphine shiver when she heard them, despite her ignorance of what the words meant.

"Didn't I just ask you to shut up?" she asked shortly as they continued on their way. "Seriously, sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a stone wall."

The dragon next to her did not reply, not so much out of obedience as out of fear.

She didn't know what the words meant, either.

* * *

It was night when Dragonsreach finally came into view, a black outline against the aurora sky. Acajou was nearly asleep on her feet and was practically dragging her face in the dirt with every step. The Blade, used to spending sleepless night upon night guarding herself from the Thalmor, was faring a bit better, but she couldn't hold back the sigh of relief when she finally saw the faint, glittering lights of the guards' torches.

"Come on, look alive," she said, nudging Acajou's jaw with the toe of her boot. "We're here."

Acajou's yawn revealed every single tooth she had. _"He's probably asleep by now."_

Delphine regarded Whiterun, with its high stone walls and sleepy single-story houses. She had only been in Whiteruna handful of times, and she hadn't liked it. Crowds tended to make her feel nervous. Dragonsreach itself was ridiculously large compared to the buildings around it. It looked like a mountain surrounded by anthills. It made Jorrvaskr look like a rowboat.

"Certainly he'll wake up for something like this," Delphine said, almost to herself. "The sooner we get this over with, the better." She looked up at the Throat of the World, a silver ghost rising into the sky, briefly wondering how the Greybeards were faring. Anger flared in her chest. Why did she end up with the all the hard work?

"_Are we going?" _Acajou's voice broke her out of her reverie.

"You don't think you're going to waltz into Whiterun as a dragon, do you?" Delphine scoffed. "Idiot. Wait here for me to get back. I won't be long."

"_In the open?" _Acajou glanced around, hunkering down like a rabbit hiding from a hawk.

"Well, yes, that's a wonderful idea if you want to get run through by every rogue bandit and bounty hunter strolling around here. I _was _going to suggest you hide in the forests between here and Riverwood, but I like your suggestion better."

Acajou thrummed. _"You're pretty funny, Delphine. How will I know when to come out and look for you?"_

"You won't. Just—and listen to me this time, for Shor's sake—stay put. I'll come for you when I'm finished with Farengar." She sighed. "It's a pity you can't fly."

As Delphine watched the green sails of Acajou's wings disappear into the trees, she felt a short pang of fear for what kind of trouble the dragonborn could potentially get into. Pushing it down, hoping with all her heart that, just this once, everything would go smoothly and they would have this whole mess figured out before the morning dawned. She laughed softly at herself at this thought. Nothing was ever that easy. If it was, then Paarthurnax would have been long dead, Acajou would still have her human form, and the Blades would be bursting with new dragonslayers, eager to fulfill the most honorable burden that had ever been laid on the shoulders of man.

Unsurprisingly, all of Whiterun was asleep when she finally reached the front gates. Her footsteps were eerily silent on the stone cobbles as she made her way past the blacksmith's and the marketplace. When she passed Jorrvaskr, she heard low voices, hushed and urgent, but they ceased when she passed the mead hall's front steps. A lover's spat, Delphine figured, and continued on her way.

Dragonsreach was even bigger up close. Despite having visited the fortress before, the Blade had to stop herself from staring up at the grand steepled roof like a bewildered child. The grand sweep of the whole place had her head spinning even before she stepped through the front doors that were tall enough for even a giant to walk through.

"I seek an audience with Farengar the mage," she said to the guard at the door, trying to sound as important and pompous as possible. The guard cast a dubious glance at her dusty form and road-weary face and snorted.

"You have come at the wrong hour of night, ma'am. All in Dragonsreach are asleep. I would suggest coming back in the morning."

"It's urgent," Delphine pressed. "I must speak with him as soon as possible."

"Urgent, you say?" The guard was obviously amused. "What is so urgent that you need to disturb the Jarl's house in the middle of the night? Theft of a sweetroll?"

Grinding her teeth, Delphine crossed her arms over her chest and planted her feet. "It's about a _dragon, _you fool! and if you do not alert the court mage of my news I shall have to report you to your jarl for dereliction of duty!"

The guard, taken aback, exchanged a look with his partner. Before either of them could answer, a soft voice said, "I am awake."

"Thank the Nine," Delphine said under her breath. She took a step forward but was arrested by an arm on her elbow.

"All dragon sightings are usually reported to the jarl," the guard said. "Why are you asking for Secret-Fire?"

"It's all right," Farengar said impatiently. "I'll make sure the jarl knows about it. Obviously this woman has news that only a mage would understand. Let go of her."

The guard stepped back with a huff. Farengar made a short gesture for Delphine to follow him. A large fire burned in a pit between two long dining tables in front of the throne where Jarl Balgruf the Greater held audience every day. Looking down from a mounted position on the wall above the throne, a great dragon's skull reflected the light of the fire, the dancing flames lending movement to its lifeless shape. Delphine's eyes stayed on it for as long as they could before Farengar led her into his quarters.

"So," he said as he closed the doors behind them, his voice silk-smooth, "what news do you bring to me?"

She tried to see his eyes in the shadow of his hood, but the only thing visible on his face was the slight smile between his dark brown sideburns.

"Farengar, we've got trouble."

"I figured as much, since you came in here spouting news of a dragon. What do you have to tell me?"

"Actually, there's something wrong with the Dragonborn. With Acajou."

"Ah, yes. Acajou." Farengar's mouth twisted strangely. "I'm surprised the little airhead remembered my name. What is she up to now?"

_Not much. Swallowing squirrels whole, killing bandits by tearing them to pieces with her gigantic teeth—you know, the usual Dragonborn-ish things. _"That's what I'm here to talk to you about."

"I thought you were here to talk to me about dragons, Delphine. Do you have news of an attack or not?"

_Yes. No. _"I think it would be better if you came with me."

The wizard tilted his head. "To where?"

"Right outside Whiterun. Acajou's waiting for us."

"I'm sorry, but I really don't see what the meaning for your visit is. You came here and woke me up to go see the dragonborn?"

Delphine looked around the room, searching for the words that refused to come to her lips to convince him. The table was covered with differently shaped bottles of colored liquids, weighing down pieces of parchment that were nearly black with markings and formulas. _Sorry for waking you up, but the dragonborn's got wings and is forty feet long and her real body is dying as we speak._

"Delphine," Farengar said, a slight edge of impatience in his voice, "was Acajou injured by a dragon?"

Delphine laughed humorlessly. "You could say that."

"_Dragon!_"

The shout stunned them both into silence for a moment before a rapid series of knocks rattled the closed door to Farengar's quarters. Heaving an irritated sigh, the wizard flung it open, causing the guard who was attempting entrance to stumble to his knees. He looked up, his eyes glistening behind his helmet.

"Your dragon is outside," he said breathlessly, sending a bolt of panic through Delphine's heart. How did they know?

"That's what you were here for, right? To tell about the dragon in the forests around Riverwood?" The guard staggered to his feet. "We just got word from one of our patrollers that he saw it waiting in the woods. It's not attacking anything yet, but we're gathering troops at the gate just in case. The Companions are already investigating. I must go wake the jarl!"

Delphine shot a pleading glance towards Farengar. Miraculously, the wizard read the emotion in her face and held up a long-fingered hand.

"Wait," he said, his voice hypnotizing. "Do not bother Balgruf. Stay your troops. Delphine and I will investigate."

"But—"

"If the dragon is dormant it poses no threat to us. If it is not moving it is probably already dead. Dragons do not sneak. I highly doubt that your troops will be needed. If there is any trouble, you will immediately know about it. Only then are you allowed to take action. Delphine?"

He strode past the guard without a second glance. Delphine felt the prickling fear on the back of her neck subside and couldn't help the wide smile that split her face as she ran after the wizard. Finally, some help!

"The jarl will know about this!" the guard called after them.

"By all means, you are welcome to tell him when he awakens," Farengar called. "I can only imagine what he'll demote you to if you wake him up to tell him about a dead dragon that's posing no threat to anyone."

"We need to hurry," Delphine breathed as the doors swung shut behind them, breaking into a run before she even finished speaking. "If the Companions are after her she'll be killed."

"She?" Farengar asked, falling into easy step next to her. His strides were long despite his long black robes, and Delphine rejoiced in having a competent companion for once. They covered ground quickly, pushing through the throng of guards waiting at the gates—who were thankfully all too happy to stay where they were instead of going dragon-hunting—and ran down the paved path to the wilderness around Whiterun. The only sounds were of crickets and the wind, which relieved Delphine greatly—maybe they were going to beat the Companions to the woods. She increased her strides, breathing heavily, feeling her age with every strike of her boots against the ground.

"Maybe you could explain some things to me on the way?" Farengar said between steady breaths. He was surprisingly fit for being a book-bound potion-maker.

Delphine thought hard about where the best place was to begin, but in the end she was spared the trouble. They had covered ground in excellent time and she now saw their destination. There, on the edge of the forested mountainside, Acajou's powerful silhouette was surrounded by five humans with their swords drawn and their feet planted in battle stances. They were still too far away or else she would have shouted for them to stop, so instead she pointed.

"That blood dragon," she panted, "is Acajou."

No answer. She thought she heard him stumble over his own feet, but she couldn't turn around to check on him. Why wasn't Acajou fighting? It seemed to her that they were all engaged in intimate conversation instead of battle. When she drew closer she saw why, and came to a stop in a spray of dirt. Farengar tripped to a halt behind her, breathing hard, his cheeks flushed.

"Don't move," Delphine whispered through unmoving lips.

Acajou was nose-to-nose with a werewolf. They were both inhaling sharply every few seconds—sniffing. The russet hairs on the werewolf's back were bristling, but its ears were pricked forward in interest. The other five humans stood there gobsmacked expressions. None of them registered Delphine's presence. After a moment, Acajou fluffed her wings out and said, _"Now do you believe me?"_

"By Ysgrammor," one of the men said, his gruff voice high and hoarse. The man next to him shook his head, disbelieving. Delphine couldn't understand how this situation came about—how could the Companions tolerate the presence of a man-killer?—but in the end she didn't have time to figure it out. The werewolf's head jerked to the side, honey-gold eyes fixing directly on Delphine's face. A feral snarl bubbled in its throat. Acajou followed its gaze rumbled deep in her chest when she saw the two newcomers.

"_Farengar!"_

Hearing a small sigh and a soft thud behind her, Delphine turned to see Farengar crash in a dead faint onto his face like a felled tree.

When the Blade finally found her voice, it was whisper thin. She couldn't take her eyes away from the werewolf. "Do you mind telling me what you're doing?"

Unfazed, the dragonborn opened her mouth and thrummed her laugh. _"Making friends!"_

* * *

_MAGICALLY DELPHINE AND FARENGAR HAVE REMEMBERED EACH OTHER. Thanks to my two (very frank) reviewers for flagging me down. _

_Yeah, I'm a dirty liar. Sorry about that. :( I have no excuse for the tardiness of this update. To make up for it, I hope you guys liked this super long chapter! This story is taking a little longer than I anticipated to get off the ground, but I'm really excited because it's going to be a great adventure! Thanks so much to Madam Mikey and br (welcome back!) for reviewing! Please let me know how I'm doing and how I can improve. I don't want to disappoint anyone. _


	8. Directional

**The Road to Kynesgrove**

_All characters and situations belong to Bethesda. _

* * *

VIII: Directional

Farengar's shaking hands were wrapped firmly around a mug of mead, making the honey colored liquid inside froth like an angry sea. With his hood pushed back, he lost much of the mysterious and magical air that seemed to accompany wizards of his caliber; instead, his face took on the look of someone who had stumbled into dazzling sunlight after being lost in a cave. There were dark circles under his wide eyes and he muttered to his cup as though he was in a shady business deal with it.

Sitting in a cushioned chair by the door, massaging her aching temples as she listened to Farengar hold an incoherent conversation with his beverage, Delphine turned her thoughts, once again, to Acajou. She hadn't seen the great emerald dragon since the night before, when she had suddenly found herself face-to-muzzle with the same werewolf that Acajou had been acquainting herself with in front of a stunned crowd of Companions. The beast had laid its furry ears back and snarled at her, spraying saliva all down the front of her armor but, before she could react to draw her sword, Acajou had butted the werewolf out of the way with a careless motion of her head. The animal made a little barking whine and then dashed off into the trees, vanishing over the crest of the hill.

"We were so close to killing her. It makes me sick to think about it," the heavily-built, bearded man closest to her had said softly. "Ria almost got a hit on her before Aela stopped us."

Delphine hadn't been paying attention or else she would have asked who Aela was. As it stood, however, she was only interested in getting Acajou hidden again as soon as possible and not even the baffling presence of a random werewolf in the midst of a group of warriors who could have easily killed the maneater could sway her from her purpose. Even if the Companions were friendly towards Acajou, the presence of their entire guild outside Whiterun would draw attention from travelers and farmers— attention that friend-seeking Acajou certainly did not need. In the end, however, the dragon disregarded her friend's worry at the prospect of a full stomach.

"They're going to hunt with me, Delphine!"

And that's how she ended up trekking, dragonless, back to Whiterun, while a pack of strangers that were supposedly trustworthy went gallivanting over the hills to feed a hungry dragon. Her back still ached from hauling the wizard's unconscious bulk back to Dragonsreach and, after spending a sleepless night in The Bannered Mare half-expecting to hear a dragon's death bellows in the distance, her haggard face was enough to make even Brenuin think twice about asking to bum a septim from her purse. Farengar had called for her the moment he came lurching out of his unconscious stupor and, in slow, halting speech, she had explained everything that had happened to her and Acajou from the very moment that they met until the moment Acajou's form bloomed into a blood dragon; ending with the question that she had tried to pry from the Greybeards and Paarthurnax. Farengar had listened like she was telling him a fairy tale, his eyes shining with unspoken emotion.

"This is amazing," Farengar whispered, jerking his head up to stare at nothing. "There must be very old and wonderful magic at work here. A human turned dragon— no, no. A dragon restored to its glorious form, breaking the bonds of its mortal prison. How wonderful!"

Resting her mouth on her closed fist, her gaze fixed on the wizard, she willed herself not to fall asleep and waited for his answer to the question she had posed. The air was warm and heavy from the fire burning in the pit in the main room, scenting everything with the smell of soup and roasting meat, and it was difficult keeping her eyes open. She ached to be back at Sky Haven, in her own bed, without some dragon to fret over and look after like it was a toddler. Delphine had never had the disease known as _maternal instinct_ and she didn't want to ruin her health by developing it now.

"Do you have any suggestions?" she asked, not meaning the words to come out as wearily as they did. Farengar pursed his lips and sipped his mead.

"If I was going to be perfectly honest with you, Delphine, I'd have to say that I don't know."

The light tone of his voice was irritating and unwelcome against her ears and her mood curdled that much more. "Well, you certainly took your time deciding the Dragonborn's fate, didn't you? Were you actually thinking of an answer or just stalling for time?"

Farengar looked up, his lips curved in a weak smile. "Don't jump to conclusions. I did not become court wizard of Dragonsreach by virtue of being a fool. I said that _I _don't know if we can get her back to her human form. However, I know someone who might."

Her heart lifted a little from where it was gathering dust on the floor. Leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, she fixed Farengar with an intense stare.

"Tell me."

Farengar, who obviously had a flare for the dramatic, drained his tankard to the very bottom and slammed the mug onto the table, making several bottles of potions jump and scatter across the map of Skyrim he had laid out.

"I know it might strike you as a little odd that a great wizard like me did not start out that way. I was ignorant and blind as any dupe you'd find wandering the hills of Skyrim— no offense to you, of course. I did not excel as a student at the College— potion making and enchanting and healing were so tedious that I more than once told myself I'd rather be scraping manure off of my boots than performing minor ward spells and learning how to turn myself invisible. And then I got the chance to learn about _dragons."_ His voice took on an awed quality at the last word and his hands balled into fists. Delphine rolled her eyes.

_Pests, _she thought. Then, thinking of Acajou: _Stupid pests._

"It was the chance of a lifetime. Only three other wizards besides me got the chance to study under the illustrious teacher who had elected to school us in wyrm lore. We spent two years with him and, in that time, I learned that dragons, while dangerous, yes, and bloodthirsty and cruel, are the most glorious creatures ever created. They are my enemy and my ally. In order to protect Whiterun from dragon attacks, I had to learn what a dragon really _is. _I owe my wizardship, my employment, my very life, to the man who taught me in those twenty-four months. I decided to dedicate my life and my magic to their study."

Delphine had been nodding absently through his reminiscent romp.

"Your teacher must have been held in very high esteem at the College."

Farengar's face twisted. "He wasn't exactly employed by the College. In fact, he never set foot on College grounds. The other instructors never talked about him and my three colleagues and I were the only students that I knew about that took up instruction with him. Of course, he was very, very old, so I am sure he had many pupils in his time. I am sure he is no longer teaching. But," he said, pointing at Delphine, "if anyone in the _world _knows about dragons, it is this man. He knows things about dragons that should be beyond human comprehension. To be honest, I came away with very little solid knowledge about dragons but with an insatiable desire to learn about them. That, to me, is the true value of education."

"All right, so I go find your old teacher. What's his name and where does he live?"

"I don't know."

Delphine snorted on a humorless laugh. She was almost too tired to inject acid into her words. "You spend half an hour singing this guy's praises and you don't even know where he lives? Are you mocking me?"

Rubbing the back of his neck, Farengar turned to the map on the table. "No, I mean, I don't know his name. He never told us. We only called him Master. But names only matter to dragons anyway. Come here and look at this map."

Dragging herself out of the chair, Delphine joined the wizard at the table's edge and followed his finger to where he was pointing. Her destination rested all the way to the northwest on a tiny piece of land that jutted into the Sea of Ghosts. A shiver ran down her spine for no particular reason when she saw it.

"It's called Lost Soul's Shrine. It's a lighthouse by the sea but there's a very extensive library and living quarters inside. It's charming, once you get over the bitter temperatures and steady diet of salted fish. It's pretty difficult to get to but, since you've got a dragon, I'm sure it will be no problem to fly there. The sea is very rough this time of year or else I'd suggest you go by boat." Farengar folded his arms. "It was no problem at all for us wizards to access but, for someone like you…well, I'd just be thankful that you have Acajou." He shook his head, thoughts lapsing. "Acajou. _Amazing!_"

"How sure are you that your master is still there?"

"There's no other place he'd be," Farengar said firmly. "All of his research, his books, his papers, his life, is at the Shrine. He is extremely old and would certainly die from exposure if he tried to get back to civilization— not that he'd want to." He finished on a snort.

"How sure are you that he's not already dead?"

The wizard's eyes grew hard. "He is not. I know in my heart he is not. I don't expect you to understand. Either you will or you won't go see him. It's all up to you."

Deciding not to press the issue, Delphine looked down at the distance between Whiterun and Lost Soul's Shrine. Her legs ached at the thought of the journey ahead. "How long will it take to get there if we walk?"

He fixed a look on her as if she had grown a second head.

"Delphine," he said slowly. "You have a _dragon _as a companion. Said dragon has _wings._ Surely you won't—"

"I will _not _depend upon Acajou for anything, especially carrying me on a cross-country flight to a destination neither of us have been to before. She might bear the name of the Dragonborn but she is a dragon, my enemy, and I will not trust her until she is back to normal."

The wizard laughed and shook his head like he was listening to a young child having a tantrum. "Oh, Delphine. I remember being as ignorant as you, once. Don't you see? Acajou is the same. Whether dragon or human in shape, she has the same soul. Whether you like it or not, you've been helping a dragon all this time. You've got to learn to accept it."

Delphine glared daggers at him. "You're simplifying it."

He shrugged. "Because it's simple."

Tired of arguing, Delphine shrugged her armor more snugly over her shoulders and turned to go. "Is there anything else I need to know about this guy?"

Farengar rubbed his chin while he thought. "He's hard of hearing, so speak up. Address him as Master and say that Farengar directed you to him. He was always polite with my colleagues and I when we first came under his tutelage but a little distant and easily distracted—so if you need to, keep reminding him of your visit. He will be thrilled to see Acajou. He lives and breathes dragon lore."

A momentary fear bubbled up in Delphine's heart and she swallowed hard. "What if he doesn't have an answer for us?"

Recognizing his friend's apprehension, Farengar settled a heavy hand on her shoulder and looked into her wrinkled face, giving her a genuine smile. "I know you feel guilty about what happened to the Dragonborn. It was a mistake, but there is no mistake too great that can't be fixed by hard work and perseverance. Don't give up at the start of your journey. I know you, Delphine, and I know that you have a hard head and a strong heart. If you throw everything you have into your purpose—if you treat this like the last great adventure you'll ever have—you will succeed."

Delphine met his eyes, the corners of her mouth barely lifting in a smile. "Shut up. You don't have to do any of the hard work." But she covered the hand on her shoulder with one of her own. "Thank you for your help. I will get there as soon as I can."

Giving her a little push towards the door, Farengar gave her his best grin, too wide in his thin face. "I'll be praying to the gods for your success."

"Thank you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a dragon to find."

* * *

The small pack of Companions all stood on the hillside, arms by their sides, weapons dropped, shoulders and chests heaving after the battle. Furry, dark brown mounds surrounded them, tufts of hair buffeted by the high winds, and the dying light gleamed off of the tusks and dulled, half-lidded eyes of the six or seven mammoths the group had felled for the dragon in their midst. The giant, mauled to death, lay in several pieces near the grove of trees where the Companions first had ambushed the mammoth herd.

And against the golden sunset, the dragon Acajou reared her head and screamed into the sky, a taloned foot crushing her kill into the ground, wings braced protectively around it. The Companions shifted uneasily as they watched the jaws snap closed on the seam of the mammoth's belly and split it open like an overripe fruit.

"She must be hungry," Farkas said as the wind blew his nearly black hair across his bruised face. A cut underneath his eye welled blood, but he didn't seem to pay much mind to it.

"Just be glad that it's not you she's sampling," his twin, Vilkas, joshed, slapping him roughly on the back. Vilkas had an easy smile and a lighter countenance then his brother but, in battle, was equally as fierce. The blade of his greatsword was buried in the ground next to him. "She almost took you out when you went to take the giant out."

"Typical Farkas, always getting in the way." This was Aela, sitting on the slope, tearing a flower to bits with her fingers. "You were practically up her ass the entire time."

"Forgive me, your highness," Farkas spat. "It's a little difficult to ask for elbow room when your battle sister _apparently doesn't understand the words 'you're going to step on me_!" These last words were shouted down towards Acajou, who was joyfully tearing enormous chunks of meat out of the mammoth carcass and swallowing them whole. Her tongue flicked out after she swallowed her last bite and she swiveled her head in his direction.

"_Sorry, were you talking to me?"_

Farkas rolled his eyes and kicked a rock down the slope. "Women," he muttered.

"It's worse when they're dragons," Vilkas agreed.

"So, Acajou," Aela called, leaning back on her elbows. "I think you can guess what my biggest question to you is going to be."

Acajou rooted her nose around in the mammoth's abdominal cavity, and when she answered her voice was muffled. _"It was an accident," _she said decidedly. _"There's no one to blame."_

"That Delphine woman looked pretty suspicious to me," Aela pressed. "Why were you so protective of her?"

"_Because I am. You were threatening her." _

"I was _testing _her. There's a difference."

"_You were intimidating her."_

"Because I think you're covering for her. Since when do you travel with bitchy old crones?"

Acajou bit off part of the mammoth's liver, dark red and glistening, and tossed it down her throat. _"She is a friend. Haven't you ever had one before?"_

"She has a point," Vilkas put in. "You can't really make friends when you're acting like you want to tear their throat out."

"I don't need friends," Aela sniffed. Underneath the blue stripes of war paint smeared across her forehead, nose and cheeks, her face set in a determined, smug look.

Farkas laughed. "Yes, who needs friends with an ass like that?" He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at the warrior woman. Aela's cheeks colored; she seized a rock and threw it straight at him. Despite the fact that he ducked, it still struck him squarely in the forehead. He clutched his head, laughing and cursing at the same time.

Acajou watched the group, thrumming low in her throat, before turning back to her meal. Her hunger had been nearly maddening, and she intended to gorge herself so full that she wouldn't be hungry for weeks. Warm blood poured down her throat with every bite, and her entire existence seemed to hum with joy at the taste and feel of raw meat in her mouth. Maybe a full stomach would quiet that whispering voice in her head, the one that spoke in unintelligible, terrifying words and filed her heart with something that felt like hatred—but who, or what, did she have to hate?

Studying Acajou with half-lidded eyes, Aela exhaled heavily, shaking her head. "I still can't believe it," she said slowly, almost to herself. "We're so accepting of a dragon Companion. If I hadn't smelled Acajou on her, I would have killed her."

Vilkas folded his hands on the handle of his sword and leaned his chin on them. "Being a Companion doesn't depend on physical appearance, Aela," he said softly. "We three should know that better than anyone. Whether she's human or dragon or werewolf, she is ours, and we are hers."

Farkas chuckled dryly. "If Kodlak is looking down on us, I am sure he's baffled as to why his position is being filled by a dragon."

Aela kissed her fingertips at the mention of the former Harbinger's name. "Whatever we need to do to get Acajou back in her normal form again, I'll do it. I just wish I knew what happened."

Swallowing the mammoth's heart and looking up, Acajou tested the air with her tongue. _"It was an accident," _she repeated firmly. _"Delphine and I are going to find a way to fix me."_

"But don't you need our help, Harbinger?" Vilkas's low voice was insistent.

The dragon shifted uncomfortably, nosing the carcass in front of her. _"I would…prefer it if less people knew about what happened to me," _she said, the tone of her booming voice less lyrical than usual. _"I don't know what I'm getting into, you see, and I'd rather you not be put in harm's way for no good reason."_

"No good reason, she says," Farkas scoffed. "Harbinger, we would all gladly die for you—"

"_But, see, I don't want you to," _the Dragonborn said as pleasantly as she could. _"If you can help me without dying, that would be wonderful."_

"I see you've been busy while I've been gone."

All three Companions spun around at the new voice. Aela was appalled at herself for not noticing the approaching stranger, and stumbled to her feet with fury scrawled across her features. What if it had been an enemy? Her anger only escalated when she noticed that it was that old woman again, fully armored and carrying a finely crafted bow across her back. Her chest rose and fell rapidly and a smug Aela noted that the walk from Whiterun—for she could smell Dragonreach's woodsmoke in her hair—had been a rough one for this old witch. That still didn't explain the ease with which she had snuck up behind them. Her pride swelled, and Aela chalked it up to her own bafflement about Acajou's condition, rather than the stranger's skill.

"_Delphine!" _Acajou's voice was joyful again. _"Where have you been?"_

"Finding out a way to help you," Delphine said acidly, shouldering past Aela, surveying the dead mammoths littering the ground around them. "And apparently you've just been stuffing your face."

The dragon ignored the jab. Thrusting her blood-covered muzzle close to Delphine, she fixed the Blade with a sunset-colored eye. _"What did you find out?"_

"We've got to go northwest. Very, very northwest."

"Where, exactly?" Aela demanded. Delphine ignored her, instead looking at the blood trailing off of Acajou's scales. "You'd better eat up now, I guess. I don't want to hear a word out of you being hungry when we get up there."

"_Delphine, you've met Aela, right?" _Acajou had noticed the murderous look in Aela's eyes and was desperately trying to prevent inevitable bloodshed. Aela had never been good at withholding her inner nature. The Blade turned a critical eye to the painted woman behind her.

"No, I can't say that I have. Although she has the same smell as that she-bitch that was in my face last night. I didn't know you kept a kennel at Jorrvaskr. Does she sleep with the dogs?"

This time it took both Farkas and Vilkas to hold Aela back, although they would have gladly let her loose on Delphine if Acajou hadn't thrust her wing between the two women. Aela was still shouting death threats at Delphine's back when Acajou told the Companions that maybe they should just wait at Jorrvaskr until she needed help.

"Are you sure you'll be all right with her?" Vilkas asked, jerking his head at Delphine's form retreating down the well-worn path. His hand was still wrapped firmly around Aela's wrist.

"Tell that crone that I'll have her skull hanging from my belt if she insults my honor again!" Aela snarled.

Acajou's gaze was blank, but her voice was tinged with a smile. _"If I need you, I will call you."_

The three warriors watched as their Harbinger's form waddled after Delphine, making the ground tremble with every step. Aela breathed heavily through her nose and it hadn't even been a minute since Acajou had departed when she strode down the hill after them.

"Whoa, wait! Where are you going?" Farkas called, taking a few running steps after her and grabbing her by the shoulder. She shrugged him off and increased her pace, her leather boots thudding the ground purposefully.

"If you think I'm leaving my Harbinger to go to the far north with only the protection of an old woman, you both are out of your minds." Aela's back was straight as she strode down the path, her hands fisted and her chin raised. "I don't trust that woman for a minute. If our Harbinger doesn't want me with her, then she'll have to kill me."

The twins exchanged glances and shrugged.

"She does have a point," Vilkas said. Farkas beamed a fierce smile and put his hand on the hilt of his steel sword.

They both hurried after the three women as the sun sank below the horizon.

* * *

_My apologies for taking so long with this chapter. As I am sure most of you know, you can't write a happy story when you're very sad. Someone I loved passed away recently and I haven't been able to wrap my mind around much of anything since then. Since The Road to Kynesgrove is supposed to be happy, I didn't want to write this next chapter until a little bit of time had passed._

_That said, I hope you're all enjoying how things are turning out. I will not abandon this story. I just needed time to get back on track, I guess. Thanks very much to my reviewers MadameHyde, Agent 94, TwelveEyes, Madam Mikey and Lo Zin. As always, thanks to my beta, thug_4_less, who waited patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) for this chapter to finally get into his hands._

_For WD: You were my friend, my mentor, my boyfriend and my hero. I will never forget what you taught me. I pray that you have found peace._


	9. Northwest

_Skyrim and all related characters and situations belong to Bethesda._

* * *

**The Road to Kynesgrove**

IX: Northwest

"_Oh, there once was a hero named Ragnar the Red_

_Who came riding to Whiterun from ol' Rorikstead_

_And the braggart did swaggart and brandish his blade_

_As he told of bold battles and gold he had – ouch!"_

The screeching song was abruptly cut off as a very angry, very determined old woman marched backwards from her place at the head of a small group of travelers and struck the singer on the nose with her fist. The singer just happened to be the Dragonborn Acajou, who tossed her head like a surprised horse and blinked at Delphine.

"_What?"_

The snow coming off of the western mountains swirled around them in cheerful eddies, silver-lit by the huge face of the moon hanging in the cloudless indigo sky. Acajou was iced like a sweetroll; the snow was so deep in places that she sank all the way up to her haunches in powdery white. Delphine's toes were numb inside her fur-insulated leather shoes and her leggings were stiff with frozen sweat. They had been walking nearly the entire night, looking and listening keenly in all directions for any signs of life other than themselves, and were taking the most surreptitious route to Lost Soul's Shrine that they possibly could to avoid detection by anyone or anything. Fortunately, they had found a low hollow between the craggy peaks all around them, and despite their single-file line being drowned in a vortex of snow and fog whipped by the wind caught between the mountains, their progress, so far, had not been tracked or seen.

Delphine, hunching her shoulders and stuffing her arms in her armpits, squinted sullenly back at her ragtag group. Acajou walked behind her, and she had to trust that the Companions were behind Acajou, because she could barely even see Acajou standing three feet in front of her.

"First off, it's 'swagger', not 'swaggart', whatever _that's_ supposed to mean. Secondly, why don't you leave the singing to tavern bards and try to keep your great gaping mouth-hole _shut _for a second so we're not set upon by bandits in the middle of the night? Does that sound like a good plan to you?"

Acajou dipped her chin in a nod. Turning her head over her shoulder, she addressed the three snickering Companions grouped behind her. Surprisingly, after her rocky introduction to Delphine, Aela had kept calm and quiet, patiently treading the snow and following Acajou's swaying gait, although anyone who know how to read her face could tell that she was stewing like a boiling pot on the inside.

"_Guess we can't sing, either." _

"Can't sing, can't hunt, can't ride horses, and can't travel by lamplight," Farkas moaned dramatically, raising balled fists to the heavens. "Whatever shall we do?"

"We can baselessly insult each other," Aela said pleasantly, although her teeth were chattering. "Delphine seems like she is rather good at it."

"How about we all just focus on the task at hand and step it up?" Vilkas sounded about as irritated as someone could get. "All of this bickering isn't going to get us to Lost Soul's Shrine any faster. I am cold enough to die right now."

"We could get out of this hollow to warm up a few degrees," Farkas suggested, looking longingly at the actual path winding up the mountainside. "Just think. Cobblestones to walk on instead of swimming through snowbanks."

"And get shot to Oblivion by the first person who sees this giant lumbering after us?" Delphine said incredulously, gesturing to Acajou. "Are you stupid?"

"You can go up the hill if you want," Aela countered. "See if you can't find a rabbit or something to cook when we stop. _If_ we stop," she added pointedly.

"I know you fierce, brave warriors are tired of walking, but I don't want to be out here any more than you do," Delphine said. "Once we find what we need at the Shrine, you can go. Preferably far away."

"What are we supposed to be looking for?" Vilkas asked as Farkas started his climb out of the hollow, leaving the group of them huddled in the mist.

"_Some old guy who's going to tell us how to get me back in my body." _The heat from Acajou's breath melted the snow beneath her head, washing over the humans and giving them the briefest relief of the driving, bitter wind.

"And every second we waste flapping our gums is another second that your real body weakens," Delphine snapped. "So let's get a move on, already!"

"I wonder whose fault that is." Aela glared right at Delphine. The Blade looked away, scowling. _This woman knows more than she thinks she knows._

"Hey!" Farkas's voice, raw from the cold, called down to them. "You guys aren't going to believe this, but I think we've been spotted."

Acajou made as if to follow Farkas up the hill, but Delphine struck her on the shoulder. "Stay here," she said brusquely as the followed the other Companions into the open. The Dragonborn craned her neck to see, and then settled for poutily flapping her wings and blowing away the piles of snow she was standing in.

"What is it?" Aela asked as she reached her shield-brother.

Farkas squinted. "I have no idea what it is, but it is something."

It didn't take Delphine long to see what Farkas was talking about. A formless shape was barreling towards them, ebony black and silent as the grave. It rushed down the snow-bright slope towards them in huge bounding leaps, leaving footprints barely deep enough to sink in. Billowing and shrinking as it moved, like a sheet hung out to dry, its shape was impossible to discern, but it looked vaguely like a human wearing a cloak that was much too big for his form. Its path followed no straight line, and it seemed to take great pains to move as jaggedly as possible.

One thing was for certain, however, and that was that it was not going to stop before it reached them. The way it moved reminded Delphine of a snake.

Vilkas clenched the hilt of his sword and squinted into the rushing wind, sticking close against his brother so all sides would be covered in case it got around them. "I can't track it," he growled in frustration.

Farkas's keen eyes never wavered from the approaching figure. "It looks like it's dragging shadows," he answered.

But there was no more time to look or wait or even act; it was upon them, and the air shrieked as it was parted by the strange shadow's passing. In one fluid leap it cleared the length of ten horses away from the group and landed like a feather in front of the Twins, and before either of them could twitch a muscle to swing their swords, it was in the air again, passing through the thick pine branches like it was no more solid than a cloud. Acajou's swung around to follow it, but Delphine read the look in her eyes and interrupted with a sharp, "No!"

Swallowing whatever Dovah words that had been forming in her throat, the dragon dropped her head and stared down her nose at the Blade. _"Why not?"_

Delphine could see her vision blur with the beat of her pulse as she gazed at the last place in the trees where she had seen the shadow. Unable to figure out what about it had frightened her so badly, she turned her fear into anger and bit her words out at Acajou. "It obviously didn't want to attack us. Why waste energy pursuing it?"

"It was running from something, then," Farkas said. He looked at the space in the snow where the figure had landed, narrowing his eyes as the wind blew away the last traces of a single bare human footprint. A sudden chill that had nothing to do with the weather gripped his stomach.

"That was a hell of a way to say hello, if it didn't want to fight," Vilkas said, settling his sword between his shoulders again. "What was that thing?"

"I've never seen anything like it." Aela's voice was more irritated than troubled. Her fierce glare caught Delphine by surprise. "Is there something you're not telling us?"

Delphine shook her head to clear her thoughts, combing her golden hair back with her fingers. "You know about as much as I do."

"The look on your face says otherwise," accused the painted warrior. "Why are you, who walks fearlessly in the company of dragons, so afraid of that creature?"

Delphine put her hands on her bony hips as they made their way back to the hollow. "Acajou isn't a dragon, she's Dragonborn. And if you accuse me of lacking a stout heart again I shall have to forcibly remove you from this group. I did not ask you to come and I do not desire you to be here."

Listening miserably to the argument, Acajou was suddenly alerted to the sound of footsteps. Several sets of footsteps—_three, three joor targets for you to play with, _the little voice inside her head told her—hurrying up the north side of the snowy slope. They smelled like—_oh, no._

"_Delphine." _

"I missed the part where I was supposed to give a skeever's ass about what you think about me being here," Aela hissed, getting right up in Delphine's face, armor to armor.

The older woman didn't even budge. "If you are going to do nothing but cause trouble on this expedition than you can haul your ass right back to your dinghy in Whiterun where you belong, mutt."

Vilkas stepped up next to his shield-sister, arms crossed over his armored chest. "Not that I want to stick my nose in your lady business here, but I would watch your tone when you address any one of us in that manner," he growled at Delphine. She scoffed at him, and then stumbled forwards when Acajou butted her from behind with her muzzle.

"_Delphine, listen!"_

Absently, Delphine braced her arm against the crest on Acajou's brow to stave off another nudge. "Believe me, nothing would please me more than to not have to address any of you three at all on this trip! I sorely misjudged Kodlak's Companions if you three are their best representatives. I'm embarrassed to be seen with you. _What_ do you want, Acajou?"

"_There's something else coming."_

Instinctively, the Companions came together, drawing their weapons and standing in a small triangle, backs together. Removing her sword from its place at her hip, the Blade assumed a battle stance, crouching low, offering the smallest possible target to whatever was coming. Acajou shifted from one foot to the other, her eyes glued to where she had last heard the sound. _Fire breath, _she thought. _As soon as I see them. _

For a moment, nothing moved. Even the wind seemed to die down, and the Dragonborn's group stayed statue-still, barely breathing. Waiting.

"We should get behind something," Delphine said, so low that she wasn't sure if anyone heard it.

Aela heard the sharp snap of a linen bowstring before anyone else registered what it was, and only had enough time to shout, "Scatter!". The arrow hissed through the trees, masked by the sound of rain, and sank into Delphine's left bicep so deeply that the arrowhead broke through the thin skin on the other side of her arm. The Blade's face blanched with pain, but she viciously clamped down on the scream that threatened to form in her throat even as she dove for cover behind a jut of rocks at the bottom of the hollow where she hoped the Thalmor couldn't hit. Stars filled her vision as she fumbled with her own bow, feeling the blood squish in her bracer as she closed her numb fingers on an arrow. "Son of a bitch," she choked out. "At a time like this …!"

Farkas crashed to the ground next to her, spraying her with dirt and leaves, and the other two Companions hustled behind a rotted out log as more arrows peppered the ground where they had been standing. Only Acajou was left standing in the open, frozen to the spot, her saving graces being the driving snow and the swirling mist pooling in the hollow. Not even Delphine could clearly make out her jagged outline any more, but she could hear the swelling breath the dragon was inhaling, reminding her of the sound of Sahloknir about to snuff her life out.

"Acajou," she said hoarsely, "you've either got to stay put or go deeper into the woods. Don't fight. Whatever you do, don't fight."

"_It's the Thalmor."_

The word sent angry fear quaking through the Blade. As if the journey couldn't get any more threatening. Now they were facing Thalmor—a Justicar, most likely—out in the open, while they were all snow blind and exhausted after a full night's travel. "All the more reason for you to listen to me."

"_I want to help." _The dragon's voice was pleading.

"You can help by not letting them know you're here."

"Judging from the angle of all the arrows _not _in Delphine's arm, they're at the top of the hill behind us," Vilkas said, baring his teeth at Delphine in a grim smile.

"Look at grandma," Aela laughed lightly. "All of the blood has drained from her face. Are you honestly scared of these high-born bastards?

_If these elves had hunted you for nearly all of your life, you would not think this was a laughing matter. _Biting her tongue and praying for courage, Delphine nocked an arrow, holding the bow unsteadily in front of her with her wounded arm. The bolt in her arm sent fire through her shoulder and she flinched and hissed through her teeth. Farkas looked at her arm sympathetically.

"It was a bad idea to stay in the open, no matter how poor the visibility was," he said, reaching into some inner pocket in his tunic and pulling out a small dagger. "Let me get that out for you."

"You'd better hurry up, then," Delphine snapped. "As soon as I get a good shot I'm letting fly."

Farkas, not knowing quite what to make of this old woman—she just wasn't any ordinary warrior; he knew that much at least—, put his big hands on either side of the arrow shaft and inspected it. "I have to push the arrowhead the rest of the way through," he told her solemnly. "It's going to hurt."

With an impatient roll of her eyes, Delphine said, "Then do it already, will you?"

"They're coming," hissed Aela. Her auburn hair was wild around her fierce eyes. "If we wait much longer for the old lady to get her shit in order, they'll be on us."

"We're all a team," Vilkas reminded her. "We can't leave a wounded warrior behind, even if they are not of our blood."

Delphine focused her mind away from the pain in her arm so she could listen. She could hear the snow crunching under their Elven boots as the Thalmor picked their way down the slope towards her position. Suddenly, a bolt of silver lightning blasted into the log Aela and Vilkas were hiding behind, blowing half of it to pieces and momentarily blinding them. Aela flipped over onto all fours and hunched in the snow like a cornered rabbit. Delphine set her teeth.

"Come out, worms," a dagger of a voice cried. "The Thalmor blood on your hands cries out for your death."

_What are they talking about? _Delphine furrowed her brow. _We haven't shed Thalmor blood. Yet. _

The others didn't seem to notice the speaker's strange choice of wording, and she didn't have time to ponder it for very long anyway, because another volley of arrows pattered into the ground around them, sending up small puffs of snow with each hit. They were closing in. It wouldn't be long until, snowstorm or not, they saw Acajou.

Aela was practically dancing with eagerness, her teeth bared.

"Farkas, Vilkas, I'm going." Her voice was feral now, ending with a fearsome growl.

"Wait, Aela—!"

The Companion pushed away from the log on all fours and leapt nimbly into the whirling white cloud that swallowed their battlefield, leaving her bow propped up on the ruined log. A second later, Vilkas followed her into the fight, tearing off his leather armor like it irritated him to wear it.

"Have they gone mad?" Delphine gasped at Farkas, turning to look at him just as he decided to snap the fletched end of the arrow in her arm off and push the shaft the rest of the way through her arm. The explosion of new pain caught her by surprise and she swore the names of nearly half the Daedric lords before her arm all the way to her fingertips stopped stinging and throbbing. Over her own jagged breathing she could hear the sounds of a vicious battle taking place somewhere she could not see, and by the sound of panicked screams and reports of thunder from desperate shots of lighting flashing aimlessly amongst the trees, she could tell the Thalmor were getting slaughtered. But by whom? Surely not two unarmed Companions?

And there was another sound—growling, snarling, the clipping together of jagged teeth.

"Farkas," Delphine grit out, her mind drawing blanks as to what kind of battle the Companions were fighting, "tell me what is going on."

Instead of offering her an answer, Farkas looked up at Acajou. "Harbinger?" he asked uncertainly. "What should we say?"

"Harbinger? What?" Delphine demanded, furious that her voice would go no louder than a croak. She had to be delirious. There was no way in Nirn that Acajou was a leader of men. "Hey! I asked you a question!"

The dragon fidgeted, turning northwest after making a noncommittal humming noise. _"We should keep going. They can catch up when they're done."_

"Acajou if you do not tell me what just happened, by the _gods _I will rip every last tooth from your mouth while you sleep!"

The Dragonborn's voice had the hilarious quality of simultaneously being nervous and nonchalant. _"Oh, you know. They're very good at improvising. Sticks and all. You know."_

"Sticks against Thalmor? _Acajou_!"

"_Okay so Aela's a werewolf."_

This time, both Farkas and Delphine's jaws dropped together.

"A what?"

"Harbinger!" Farkas's face was drawn with betrayal.

Somewhere far down the slope a Thalmor shrieked his dying breath, barely audible over the animalistic roar that preceded it.

"_And so's Vilkas."_

Delphine's eyes met Farkas's.

"_And so's Farkas."_

That did it. Delphine somehow leapt up and ran fifteen paces into the snow in one movement and stood clutching her bleeding arm, bracing against a fir tree as she glared accusingly at the idiot whose life was inexorably tied to her destiny. Her fearless leader the Dovahkiin had her walking in the company of maneaters without even telling her.

"You," she told Acajou in a shaking voice. "You!"

Misreading the fury burning in Delphine's blue eyes, Acajou decided to be reassuring. _"Me? Oh, you don't have to worry about me, Delphine. I don't have the beast blood. I'm all human."_

* * *

_Ten year anniversary on fanfiction! My, time does fly. Also, happy new year to everyone!_

_Thanks for waiting patiently for this chapter. I am very excited to write the next one, because soon there might be a bad guy I get to introduce! I love bad guys! The next chapter will be up next Wednesday the 23rd! Getting back to my original updating schedule? How shocking!_

_This chapter has not been beta'd because my beta is pretending to have food poisoning. Be strong, man! That means all mistakes are mine alone. _

_Thank you, as always, to my wonderful readers. I really want to make you happy with the story! Thanks again to Madame Hyde, nachosforever, yko, and Branwhin for reviewing. _


	10. Apricity

_Skyrim and all related characters belong to Bethesda._

* * *

X: Apricity

Lost Soul's Shrine was as bleak as its name sounded. Perched on a wave-battered outcropping of rock that stretched out into the Sea of Ghosts, the lighthouse was dark and silent in mists that rose with the grey dawn. It wasn't exactly where Farengar had pointed to on the map, and they would have missed it if Acajou hadn't suddenly become fidgety and nervous, saying that she _felt _something watching them from the waves. They had all been looking for the shrine's illuminated lantern room to guide them; their collective stomachs sank when they came upon the weather-beaten stone structure that looked more like a ruin than anything that could have housed life. Entire chunks of the wall had crumbled away, leaving holes that yawned open to the elements.

Delphine was hardly surprised when they opened the rotting wooden door and found it empty as a skull.

"Doesn't look like anyone's lived in here for ages." If Vilkas felt any of the crushing disappointment that Delphine shared, he was managing to keep it out of his voice.

They all stood in the circular central chamber of the lighthouse, the wooden door rattling in its frame behind them. The flagstone floor was bare and covered with rubble from the crumbling walls, and the wind whistled through the holes and fluttered the tattered tapestries hanging on each side of the fireplace. The iron grate was covered with fingers of ice and the cast iron pot hanging on the hook was filled with various bits of debris.

The Blade, her mouth set in a hard line, turned in a slow circle, looking for anything that gave her a reason not to throttle Farengar when she got back to Whiterun. There were a few bare bookshelves pushed up against the walls, and a chest that, when she pried the lid open, revealed only empty potion bottles and a ruined book whose pages were so ancient that they crumbled in her hands.

Aela ran a hand over the top of the mantelpiece, her fingers coming away coated with grime. "It doesn't look like anyone's ever lived here," she said shortly. Delphine looked at her out from the corner of her eye, but said nothing. She heard the accusing note in the werewolf's voice but did not deign to acknowledge it; she chose instead to wrap a protective hand around her hastily bandaged bicep. By some miracle, they had found a bottle of healing potion in the pocket of one of the mutilated Thalmor's robes; it had healed most of the muscle damage done by the arrow but hadn't completely stemmed the bleeding. As the only non-prey animal—and wounded to boot— in a troupe full of werewolves and a dragon, she realized it was wise to not start any fights.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Farkas asked her from across the room. He was crouched by a cupboard, rifling through mold-speckled plates and broken goblets. Aela stood next to him, holding a wheel of cheese that was more mold than cheese.

"Who knows?" Delphine muttered. She shuffled into the adjoining bedroom, stepping over the pieces of a broken chair. A pile of cobweb-covered straw heaped in the corner must have been the bed at one point, and a table next to it held a half-melted wax candle and an overturned tankard. She noticed that the straw was tamped down in the center, like a bird's nest, but any stray wolf or skeever could have done that.

"I can't pick up a lingering human scent on any of this stuff." Farkas was saying as she entered the main room again. Aela was squatting by the fireplace, peering up into the chimney as Vilkas absently flipped through the same book that Delphine had thrown on the floor earlier. "If someone did live here, they've been gone for decades."

Aela stood up, tightly crossing her arms. "Hear that, grandma?" she asked. "Your friend led you by the nose to an empty hovel. What are you going to do now?"

Ignoring the query, Delphine struck the rickety door with her palm; it flung open and banged into the wall outside, shedding several splinters of wood as it did so. Boots crunching the snow, she looked all around the jagged rocks for her charge.

Deep tracks in the snow led away from the lighthouse and down to where the rocks met the ocean, and there stood Acajou, deep in the surf, getting blasted by sea spray every time a wave broke. Delphine watched her as she churned the water with her wings, and, with a flash of her head, instantly closed her jaws around a stunned fish that had wandered too close.

_This is what I've reduced the Dragonborn to. This is what I have to fix._

"Acajou," she said wearily. The dragon tossed her head and turned towards her, the fish comically hanging out of the side of her mouth like an unslurped noodle, weakly flopping its tail.

"_You thaid you weren't going to ever thpeak to me again." _Acajou's fish-induced lisp sounded genuinely surprised.

"With good reason. I wouldn't let _you _walk unwittingly in the presence of dragonslayers, so why did you let me go cavorting across western Skyrim with a pack of wolves without letting me know?"

"_But _you're_ a dragonslayer, Delphine."_

An exasperated Delphine rolled her eyes. "I mean dragonslayers that actually _want _to kill you, idiot."

"_Aela and the others wouldn't have bothered you. I promise. I didn't mean for you to find out like that."_

"You mean you didn't mean for me to find out at all." The Blade kicked snow away from where she stood, trying to work up the energy to get mad again. It didn't work. "I suppose it doesn't matter one way or the other," she said finally. "You hold their allegiance and they—Shor help them!—follow your orders." She paused. "How in the world did you become Harbinger, anyway?"

"_I don't know." _The bald honesty in Acajou's voice told Delphine that the she genuinely had no idea how she ended up in the position. The Blade got a brief flash of these fierce hunters going to human Acajou for advice and getting her classic wide-eyed, 'slapped in the face with a fish' look in response. _"Do you promise not to tell anyone about them? The only ones who are supposed to know are the four of us. Well… now it's five, if we count you."_

The Dragonborn was asking for more of her promises. Somehow Delphine didn't have the heart to break a second one. "Even if I did, no one would believe me," she said, defeated. "Just make sure you keep your dogs away from me, is that clear?"

Acajou's tail lashed the snow. _"They won't bother you. I give you my word. As long as only Farkas knows that I told you about the beast blood, you should be fine."_

"Why? What would happen if Aela or Vilkas finds out?"

A pregnant pause, during which Acajou looked sheepishly at the ground and fished for some excuse to change the subject, told Delphine all she needed to know. "So they're very protective of their secrets? I can understand that."

The sail on Acajou's back fanned out in what Delphine assumed was relief. Jerking her head at the lighthouse, the dragon asked, _"What have you found in there?"_

The question brought Delphine back to her current dilemma. "That's the problem. There's no one in there. Farengar's teacher probably died years ago. I can't believe I fell for his 'I know in my heart he is not dead' bullshit."

Striding out of the waves, streaming water, Acajou approached her friend, looking up at the ruined peak of the lighthouse. _"Do you feel…funny, at all?" _she said around the fish.

"Well, that depends. If by "funny", you mean, infuriated that I put my trust in someone who obviously had no idea what he was doing or where he was sending us, then yes. I do feel pretty funny."

Acajou shook her head. _"I mean, like something is here with us. Like something sees us, or knows we're looking for it."_

"Weren't you listening? I told you, the place is abandoned. We came here for nothing."

Ice was already forming on the ridges of Acajou's forest green scales. _"Yes, I heard you," _she said passively. _"This place still gives me the creeps, though." _

The wind chose this precise moment to begin a long, low moan as it coursed around the lighthouse. Delphine begrudgingly agreed. "You and me both. I'll be glad when we're out of here."

"_We're not leaving now, are we?"_

Delphine exhaled heavily. "I couldn't walk another step if I tried. I guess we'll camp here for the day and then leave tonight, if we don't freeze to death in there first."

"_But where else can we go to get help?" _Acajou followed her back to the door.

Massaging her temples, Delphine shrugged. Their journey had just begun and already they had run into a dead end. "I don't know. I'll think of something. Just… give me a little bit, okay?"

Something landed with a wet thump next to her. She looked down to see the fish wriggling in the snow.

"_For you," _Acajou said proudly. _"I already ate."_

Delphine stared at her, feeling something in her chest that could have been either gratitude or nausea. The ever-hungry Acajou giving _her _food? She must have looked more miserable than she felt. After a moment, she lifted her good arm and gave the dragon an affectionate pat on the nose.

"Thanks," she said dryly. "I'll take this inside to the others. And, if you feel the pressing need to do something stupid while we're sleeping, I beg you to _please _ignore it. I want you right here the entire day. Do you understand me?"

The sun was just about to break over the horizon, burning through the ghostly clouds of mist surrounding them. Acajou looked longingly towards the eastern sky, feeling a nameless instinct calling deep within her.

"I said, do you understand me?" The older woman's voice was sharp.

"_Yes, Delphine. I will stay here." _

Grabbing the slippery fish by its tail, Delphine shouldered the lighthouse door open. "You might as well get some sleep while we're here," she said brusquely. "We're not stopping at all on the way back."

She let the door slam shut on the dragon's groan.

* * *

With a fire roaring in the grate, the fish bubbling in broth in the cleaned-out pot, and their bedrolls spread in a triangle on the floor, the Companions had Lost Soul's Shrine looking more inhabitable before Delphine knew it. The flames chased away the bitter chill but failed to melt the icy layer of silence that had formed between them when they hadn't found Farengar's teacher. Delphine didn't have an appetite, so even when Vilkas thrust one of the cleaner bowls into her hands and informed her that the stew was ready, she made no move to get up from from the overturned bucket upon which she sat, and instead stared out of one of the holes in the wall at the streaming sunshine. Exhaustion anchored her limbs and her usually sharp mind was clouded with doubt. She didn't want to think about their next move because she had no idea what their next move would be.

Aela tipped the last of her stew into her mouth and tossed the bowl into a corner. "I'm going to sleep," she announced, too loudly to just be addressing her two pack mates. "We'll leave when I wake up."

"Do we need to take turns staying awake?" Farkas asked as Aela stripped herself of her leather shoes and flopped down onto her bedroll. Propping herself up on one elbow, she gave him a disgusted look.

"I don't see a reason for establishing a watch schedule when there's a dragon outside. If anybody is stupid enough to bother her, they won't be around long enough to pose a big enough threat."

Delphine furrowed her brow. She had forgotten to ask Acajou just how much Aela and the others knew about the situation. The she-wolf obviously didn't think it was necessary to keep a constant eye on Acajou, which meant she was ignorant of just how dire the Dragonborn's situation was. In any case, she realized with a weary pang that she'd probably be the one sitting a full, self-imposed watch. It wouldn't be the first time she had done so—she had had enough practice staying awake for days on end while running from the Thalmor—but just the thought of it made her eyes burn. With a groan, she got up to fetch her bedroll from where she had laid it out in the bedroom.

"I'll do it," she grunted.

Aela snorted into her bedroll. "Yeah, thanks for looking out for us, grandma."

As the Blade disappeared into the bedroom, Farkas leaned from his chair and hissed at Aela, "You do know she's not our enemy, right? Why are you being so vicious? It's not like you to be so…catty."

"I can't hear you, Farkas. I'm sleeping. I suggest you should stop worrying about other people's business and do the same."

Farkas looked helplessly at Vilkas, who shrugged and refilled his bowl with stew. "Women," he said, as if that was the only explanation the situation needed.

_If only Esbern was here. If only anybody else in Skyrim was here, this would be so, so much easier, _Delphine inwardly lamented as she struggled with her bedroll. For some reason her back had chosen that exact moment to start aching as if she had been kicked in the spine by a horse. _And I brought this all on myself. _

In the end, she gave up on folding it neatly and just bunched the layers under her arm, muttering under her breath. Looking around the room for anything she might have missed, she kicked at the cobwebby straw in the corner, half expecting to scare a rat or two out of its nest.

Her boot revealed the leather cover of a journal.

For a few heartbeats, she fixed it with a fierce stare like she was facing an enemy. Loosening her grip on her bedroll and letting it puddle at her feet, she knelt down slowly and, praying with all of her heart that her find would somehow be useful, closed her fingers around the book's spine.

It was thick, thicker than most journals by several hundred pages, and its weight was satisfying in her hands as she settled cross-legged on the floor to examine it. The two covers were bound by a carefully tied leather thong, and when she undid it, she was pleasantly surprised to find that the pages inside didn't come spilling out in a crumbly mess. They were old, yes, but not brittle, and, most importantly, they were written on.

The only problem was that she couldn't understand a word of what was written.

"Shor's bones, can I ever catch a break?" she muttered under her breath as she flipped through page upon page of scribbled text. The words were legible enough, and she could pronounce them if she tried, but they were written in a language unknown to her. The book could have told her how to save Acajou's soul or make the world's most complicated potage and she wouldn't have known the difference.

Delphine rested her cheek in one hand and pushed out her lower lip. The text became darker and more pronounced with each progressing page; in some sections, the author had pressed the quill into the paper so roughly that they had torn the parchment and made ink bleed all over the pages. Other pages were covered with scribbles and sketches of strange symbols and single words whose very pronunciations were ominous on Delphine's lips.

As she drew close to the end, she noticed that the penmanship had disintegrated to the point where the words were only composed of weak, ghostly lines that seemed to float on the paper. Judging from the size of the journal, this was probably only due to the author's old age, seeing as the full journal could have held several lifetimes' worth of entries. Checking for entry dates proved fruitless.

_Let me guess, _she thought as she flipped to the very last page. _This will have more of the same gibberish. _

The last page was indeed written on. The center of the page was darkened with text written by a very firm hand, and Delphine nearly swallowed her heart when she read them.

_**Alok huzrah nahkip sil dir vo i have heard the call it is calling me I HAVE HEARD THE CALL **_

"Delphine?"

Gasping, Delphine jerked her head up, staring with wide eyes at Farkas, who was leaning in the doorway with a worried expression darkening his features.

"Are you alright? You've been in here a long time."

The Blade looked down at the journal in her shaking hands. She felt something slick on her cheeks, but couldn't tell if it was sweat or tears. "Have I?" she asked in a shaking voice.

The man nodded. "Two hours, at least. The rest of them are asleep. If you need me to watch Acajou for you, you can catch a couple hours of shut-eye. I promise I won't let her out of my sight."

Delphine exhaled uneasily, dragging her fingers through her hair. "I'm… I'm okay, I think."

"You don't look it. You're white as a sheet." Farkas stepped closer to her. "What's that you've got?"

She looked down at the journal, the words on the last page screaming up at her. _Sil dir vo. I have heard those words spoken before._

With some difficulty, she struggled to her feet, clutching the journal to her chest. Farkas put a steadying hand on her arm and she met his eyes with a weak smile. He looked simultaneously confused and relieved.

"I think this trip wasn't such a waste after all."

Farkas hefted the journal out of her hands. His weather beaten face broke out in a toothy grin. "Wanna go outside to tell me about it?"

* * *

The sunlight dazzled off the snow piled outside, and Delphine's breath caught in her throat at how cold the air was compared to the lighthouse's interior. The wind streaming off the ocean waves yanked her hair out of its low ponytail, but the air was no longer filled with snow or mist and instead showed the world around them, all mountains and sea, with brilliant clarity.

Acajou lay curled right outside the front door, her flank rising and falling steadily in sleep. Her body heat had melted the snow around her outline, and Delphine figured that sitting up against a great green furnace of a dragon was as good a place as any. Farkas—rather unnecessarily—helped her get situated next to the leathery tent of Acajou's folded wing, before settling down next to her and stretching his boots out in the snow. Delphine, noticing how close he was sitting, scooted a few inches in the other direction. _Werewolf, _her instinct reminded her.

"Won't we wake her?" Farkas asked, his thick Nordic accent almost drowned out by Acajou's exhaled sigh.

"She won't wake up for anything less than a table laid out for a feast," Delphine said, only half joking. She leaned her head back against green scales and stared up at the sky. "Take a look at that journal and see if you can understand any of it."

Farkas turned a few pages before giving her an uneasy sideways glance. "I guess it would be a good time to tell you that I don't read so well," he said on a short laugh.

Delphine looked at him sharply, trying to gauge if he was joking or not. He turned back to the journal, and the puzzled look on his face made her chapped lips curve into a rough smile.

"Well, that doesn't matter. I can't read but a single sentence in that whole thing." She pulled the journal back into her lap and drummed her fingertips on the cover.

"So how does that help us?"

"Because in that one sentence were the words I was looking for," she said, trying to force some confidence into her words.

Farkas frowned. "You only needed to read one sentence in that entire thing to find out how to help Acajou?"

"Well, not exactly, but it points me in the right direction. Now I just need to get this to someone who can actually read it. My answer is bound to be written in here somewhere."

"Ah. Who are you going to take it to?"

_Esbern. Esbern has to know what language this is written in. _A crushing thought struck her. _It will take him… weeks, months, to translate this. By then it might be too late. _

"I have… a friend I can take it to. The problem is, there's a time limit. Acajou might become stuck in her dragon form if we take too long in trying to translate this thing."

"It is pretty long. I bet you only scholars know that many words."

_Scholars. _Understanding suddenly dawned on Delphine's features like a sunrise. _Scholars. _

"_Scholars_!" she cried, startling the Companion, "This journal belonged to Farengar's professor!"

"Belonged to who's what?"

Slapping her hand on the cover, Delphine couldn't contain her hopeful joy. "The man that sent us here—he did so because this is where he studied with his professor. We thought this place was abandoned, but his professor must have just cleared out a while ago. These must be his notes. We are on the right track!"

The Blade's happiness was infectious, and Farkas found himself smiling back at the woman, suddenly wondering why he thought her azure eyes were so beautiful. "So we can take it back to this Farengar guy, right?"

Delphine nodded, turning ideas over in her mind. "Well, we can, but we only have one copy of the journal, and my friend is an expert in this dead language kind of stuff. Still, it will be faster if we can somehow get both of them to work on deciphering it."

"I can solve that problem. May I?" He held out his big hand for the journal.

Delphine was mildly taken aback when he opened the journal and tore it straight down the middle, splitting it into two equal halves.

"You take one half to your friend," he said cheerfully, plopping the second half of the journal in Delphine's lap, "and we'll take the other back to Whiterun. Does that sound like a good idea?"

After a moment of staring into his eyes—_how can a werewolf have such a gentle expression?—_ Delphine turned away with a sniff. "I can't argue with that logic," she said good-naturedly. _Even though Farengar is still on my shit list for promising that his professor would still be here. _

"Good," Farkas said, pleased with himself. "That will at least get Aela off of your back for a while."

When Delphine gave a disgusted snort, Farkas heaved a sigh. "Aela… takes a while to get used to people. Most of us Companions do. We have a tendency to only trust each other."

"That's fine, as long as your self-righteous hatred of all humans doesn't impact the job I have to do," Delphine countered, although there was no venom in her voice. She fixed him with a steady stare. "You know, some prey animals actually play with their victims before slaughtering them. Is that what you're doing now?"

Farkas looked offended. "Very few of us kill humans in cold blood."

"Oh, so you just eat them for their own well being?"

"Does that matter to you? You are a fellow warrior, and a friend to our Harbinger Acajou. You're not in any danger while you're with us."

"Pardon my skepticism, but I wouldn't put it past the bitch Aela to tear my throat out while I slept."

Pressing his lips together, Farkas made as if to stand and leave, but at the last minute, Delphine put her injured hand on his bicep, pinning him to the spot. He glared at her.

"I'm… sorry," she said lowly. "I am thankful to you for tending to me when I was struck with that arrow."

"You have a shitty way of showing it." Still, he settled back against the sleeping Dragonborn.

"You have to pardon my temper," Delphine continued. "These past few weeks have been…taxing."

They sat in unsteady silence for a while, listening to the surf and the sound of Acajou breathing. All of a sudden, the scales behind their backs began vibrating, and the fearless Dovahkiin began growling in her sleep, snarling and half-kicking her hind legs. Delphine leaned forwards and smiled when she saw the scaly eyelids twitching madly.

"She's dreaming," she said on a soft laugh. "What about, I wonder?"

"Killing Alduin," Farkas said automatically. "Freeing Skyrim."

_Alduin, dead by Acajou's hands. Hopefully. If we make it in time. _Delphine tried to picture the human Acajou warring with the World-Eater. Fate had a funny way of choosing the most incapable individuals to bear the heaviest burdens. "That'll be the day," she said, skepticism making her tone heavy.

Farkas's face was smug. "You don't know very much about the Dragonborn, do you?"

"What? Don't be ridiculous. I know more about Acajou than _she_ does." Delphine stood up suddenly, stretching her aching back. "It's just that she refuses to face the truth about herself."

"What's that?"

Deciding that she had said too much, Delphine waved his question away. "Anyway, what do _you _know about her that makes you an expert?"

"I know that she is a brave warrior. A fierce protector. A loyal friend. And I know that she values the people around her more than she values herself."

"The only thing I've ever seen her value is _food,_" Delphine countered. "You must be thinking of something else."

"I'm completely serious," Farkas said, and indeed his tone was as sincere as a prayer. "When she first came to us, she was given the most awful jobs we had, tasks that had been backlogged for months because none of us wanted to deal with them. Animal control, tracking down thieves, babysitting nobles—and she took them all. Happily, with that stupid smile on her face. And she got them all done without asking a single one of us for help."

"So? Killing a few spiders doesn't exactly constitute a hero's task."

Farkas's explanation was patient. "If you've ever noticed, Acajou almost always travels alone. Even after she joined the Companions, she never took Vilkas or Aela or I on any of her missions. At first, we thought it was because she was shy. And then, one night when we finally cornered in the new members' quarters after she came back from a thieves' den, covered in burns and slashed up like she had been through a meat grinder, we asked her why she never wanted help from us, from anyone. And do you know what she said?"

"'I'm hungry'?" Delphine guessed.

Farkas had to smile at that. "She told us her three rules. The first was pretty stupid—_always trust a nice person. _The second was never to bring a friend into a fight when you can handle it yourself. Her words were, 'never endanger anyone else if you don't have to'. She does all of her fighting by herself so other people—even people like you and me, warriors at heart—won't get hurt."

"That's because she's stupid." _Selfless, _her heart corrected her, but she kept her lips closed. "What's her third rule?"

"Always eat as much as you can, when you can."

"I figured," Delphine groaned. Acajou couldn't string together three noble thoughts if her life depended on it. She looked at the sleeping dragon's face and felt a tug of… something, in her chest.

"The Dragonborn will definitely kill Alduin," Farkas said, as confident as if it had already happened.

"Just because her so-called _rules _dictate her actions, doesn't mean they will actually come to fruition," Delphine said, but she didn't feel the heat in her words. She would never admit it, but the second rule— _that_ one she could understand. How many times had she wished to take Acajou's burden and put it on her own shoulders? Granted, it was more for her own benefit than Acajou's, seeing as she couldn't see Acajou opening a jar of preserves without hurting herself.

Acajou hummed in her sleep. Delphine rested a hand on her side and felt the dragon's heart thumping beneath her palm. _I hope your dream is a good one. Idiot._

"She sure can sleep through anything, though," Farkas said, patting Acajou's emerald scales. "What does it take to wake her up, anyway?"

"You don't know very much about the Dragonborn, do you?" Delphine tossed Farkas's words back at him with a short laugh, but when he scowled at her, she beamed a smile at him that made her look years younger.

"Acajou. Breakfast time!"

* * *

_Had a blast writing this chapter. That's why it went so fast. I hope you all are still enjoying it! Please let me know if there's anything I can do to improve it. I sometimes think I am going too slow, but I have a bad habit of rushing through stories, so. _

_Thanks so much to all of my wonderful readers! It means a lot to me that you're sticking with this story. Thanks very much to thug for reviewing. :)  
_


	11. Solitary Silhouette

_All characters and situations belong to Bethesda._

* * *

**The Road to Kynesgrove**

XI: Solitary Silhouette

_Farengar._

A single candle's steady flame threw light on the sleeping form of Whiterun's court wizard, passed out at the small side table in his bedroom with his head and folded arms resting on the curling, yellowed pages of an old journal. He snored softly, mumbling as he dimly registered his name being spoken. The word seemed to come from his deepest dreams, gently coaxing him from slumber.

_Farengar, alok nu.  
_  
The Nord jerked awake with a snort, nearly falling off of his stool. It took him a moment to gather his senses and remember where he was; the whispering voice faded from his memory. The journal lay open in front of him, the scribbled words blurring in the low light. The Companions had brought it to him several days prior, asking that he inform Delphine if he could interpret what was written on the pages. Scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, he thought back to the past seventy two hours and wondered if at any point in his life he had been as frustrated as he was now.

The author of this mess couldn't possibly have been his master, and yet he well recognized the quill strokes has teacher's hand had produced. Not once under his tutelage did Farengar ever see his master writing in this huge journal-which, the Companions had told him when they delivered it, had been ripped in half and the other section delivered to one of Delphine's associates-but what disturbed him was the complete alteration of writing style about halfway through. On one page, his tutor had been writing about the proper way to bury a dragon (to keep the soul from escaping the body, place a leek in its mouth and cover its eyes with a branch cut from a fir tree) and the next page was an unintelligible mishmash of words:_ a soul gem as large and shining as a mountain i am being swallowed my bones will rot in your bed I will keep myself in your cage zu'u dovah zu'u dovah zu'u_

And that nonsense went on for the rest of the book.

With slender hands he ran his fingers over his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering how long he had been asleep and hoping he hadn't drooled all over the journal's pages. Stifling a yawn in his sleeve, he stood up to stretch his cramped spine when he heard the voice again.

_Dahmaan zu. _

His body froze, every muscle tensed. Quiet and musical the words were, and haunting in their familiarity. They drifted from the room like leaves blown by the wind, leaving the wizard slightly trembling, his face still buried in the crook of his arm. When the voice didn't return, he let out the shaky breath he didn't realize he had been holding.

"Hello?" he said, uncertainly. The candle's tiny flame fluttered. Dragonsreach answered him with dead silence.

Standing and slipping his feet into his soft-soled boots, he ventured out of his small bedroom. His study was dark; the bookshelves and tables were all shadows in the gloom, and the fire in the Great Hall beyond had burned down to weak cinders. Blue moonlight filtered in from the high windows, but none of it reached his quarters. The Jarl's castle was truly asleep. And yet….

_Farengar._

This time, the voice had moved from his bedroom to somewhere out in the Hall, almost too quiet for him to hear. Steeling his resolve, he moved around his paper-strewn desk and strode into the hall. His feet automatically steered him towards the stairs and into the inky darkness of the second story.

"I am here," he said, his voice wavering just a little. "Where are you? Who are you?"

One of the steps squealed under his boot as he stepped on it, almost drowning out the immediate response to his inquiry.

_Zu'u in. _

The second story was unusually cold, and as Farengar stood on the top step, trying to get his bearings in the darkness, he felt a chill breeze stir his midnight blue robes. He squinted. The doors to the Great Porch were ajar.

"Maybe it was just the wind," he mused, approaching the doors with outstretched arms lest he trip on the carpet and sprawl on the ground. Poking his head out, he took the chill of the air deeply into his lungs, trying to clear his head. The covered section of the porch was wrapped in shadow, but the balcony was bathed in the starlight; the white stone glowed like ivory. Snow-capped mountains stabbed the sky in the distance, white razors against the horizon.

_Farengar. Het. Nok._

Farengar's eyes narrowed.

A pool of shadow blighted the otherwise pristine balcony, shivering like a mirage. For a second, in the space of time between blinking, the mage thought he saw a figure standing over the shadow; a billowing shape, a man cloaked and hooded, buffeted by the wind—but then it was gone, and only the shadow remained.

Like a man in a trance, Farengar stepped out onto the porch, leaving the huge wooden doors swinging open behind him. His footsteps made no sound as he glided over the flagstones, and when he came into the dazzling moonlight he had to hold his arm over his eyes. When he brought it down, the shadow had dissolved, and what remained on the ground at his feet was a mask.

He stared. It was a beautiful piece of work: a solemnly carved face with almond-shaped eye holes, a straight mouth, and intricate runes deeply etched over the whole piece. Leaning down to grasp it, he noted that the material—smooth and glassy and cold—was much heavier than it looked. He turned it from side to side, noting the color change deep under the mask's surface. It was dark, almost black, but when the light struck it, it flashed crystal blue and violet, like seeing a glimpse of sky behind a cloud.

He had the strangest feeling he was meeting an old friend again after a very long separation, and there was an ache in his chest when he breathed. The voice whispered once more, and Farengar could swear it was happy.

_Zu aav._

The court mage of Whiterun held the mask up to the moon, marvelling at the silver light that now poured out of the eye holes, and smiled.

* * *

Whenever Acajou felt overwhelmed by destiny, whenever her quest pushed her one step too far towards burning out, whenever she felt completely and utterly lost- moreso than usual- she retreated to Monahven. The stars, the snow, the crystal sky, all these things served to clear her easily addled brain at the cost of shivering for a few hours in the bone-deep cold. She would climb up past the crumbling Word Wall, sliding and scrambling on patches of ice, until she reached a jut of rocks just beneath the mountain's jagged peak. The wind was vicious at this altitude, and her knees trembled whenever she remembered how far down solid ground was, but watching the sky from this perch was enough to erase her fears and make her forget that the entire country of Skyrim was depending on her to not be a total screw-up.

Somehow, though, in the presence of Paarthurnax, the wind didn't bite as deeply, the snow didn't cling as tenaciously to her legs, and the company they kept together on top of the world was as pleasant as if they weren't two dragons wrestling with their instincts screaming at them to decimate Nirn and leave it a smoking ruin. Even before Acajou had been robbed of her human form, her subconscious dovah sil had whispered to her in dreams, tempting her with flashes of how blissfully wonderful it would feel to crush a human's head in her jaws and set a whole town on fire with one breath. Now that she was a dragon in more ways than just carrying a title, that little voice had become more and more insistent, robbing her of her already tenuous ability to focus on the tasks ahead of her. And so, once more, she found herself occupying her favorite spot on the tallest mountain in Skyrim, her body wrapped around the peak like a snake on a tree branch.

Perched on his Word Wall, looking as much a part of the mountain as the snow and the rocks, Alduin's former second-in-command meditated with closed eyes on the dovah rotmulaag, his throat reverberating with the echo of drem being chanted over and over for days on end. The true meaning of the word-peace, true peace, all encompassing peace-was evading him, slipping just out of his grasp every time he thought he had calmed his spirit into a trance. He knew he should not be worried. Worry did absolutely nothing to a situation except make it worse.

However, it didn't help at all that the root of his worry was sharing his strunmah this evening.

_"And then we were attacked by Thalmor_," Acajou babbled, gushing about her recent adventure like a child home from school. _"Delphine was hurt, but she made sure that I wasn't spotted. We walked in a freezing ravine the whole time, just for my sake." _She paused to shift the grip of her deadly claws. _"See? Delphine's not a bad person."_

The ancient dragon's eyes remained closed. _"Hmmm."_

_"She even found a very old journal in the lighthouse that Farengar told us about, and she said it's probably got tons of stuff that will tell Esbern and Farengar how to help me. They just have to figure out what it says first."  
_  
_"Who did you say directed you to that place?"_ Paarthurnax raised his head; the snow that had gathered on his brow slid off in a puff.

_"Farengar Secret-Fire. He's the court mage at Dragonsreach in Whiterun."_

The silver dragon shifted, shedding the rest of the snow from his wings and back, and turned to look down the rest of the world. The restless feeling in his chest swelled into solid unease. That name. That place.

_"I have some onikaan for you, Dovahkiin."_

Sobered by his unusually quiet tone, Acajou released the mountain peak and clumsily worked her way towards the Word Wall. Even though she was a dragon, she felt tiny standing before him, as tiny as she had when she had first met him all those months ago, filling her with equal parts awe and pants-crapping terror.

_"It seems unfair of me to ask this of you, because I have no alternative means with which to help you. I imparted this Thu'um to you because I perceived, in my ignorance, that I was acting as your grah-zeymahzin, but I fear I have done you wrong."  
_  
Acajou laughed, the column of her throat producing a sound that was like rocks being ground together. _"You saved me, though!"_

Paarthurnax shook his head once, his crystal blue stare punching a hole in her mirth. _"It is well that you think so, but that may not be the case. You are not familiar with the Shout I used on you, are you?"  
_  
Acajou shook her head.

_"It is a Shout that was born out of desperation and anger, and was not something I would have desired to use if circumstances had allowed otherwise. I learned it from my zeymah, who, I think, did not intend to teach it to me. When I last saw him, the Shout was the only thing he could pronounce."_

_"It's a very useful Shout, though_," Acajou interrupted. _"Can you teach it to me?"_

_"No, Dovahkiin. I am trying to tell you that I have not helped as much as hindered you. I cannot say that I regret my initial decision to use the Shout on your human form, but I must warn you that you must be cautious. I am afraid for you, Dovahkiin, because you now share the legacy of, and are now seeking assistance from, the joorre that owe their mir to the mad dragon Numinex."_

Cocking her head, Acajou wracked her brain to recall the last place she had heard that name. Surely it wasn't one of the dragons whose souls she had absorbed-numinex wasn't in the bank of names she had heard whispered in the depths of her heart in the quiet hours of the morning, when she could feel the dovah souls shift under her skin-but it was frustratingly familiar. For some reason, the word reminded her of bones.

Suddenly, it clicked, and she fixed a puzzled expression on her friend. _"The skull in Dragonsreach?"_

Paarthurnax bent his head in acknowledgement. _"I am sure you know fragments of the tey do Numinex-that he was captured and imprisoned in Dragonsreach until he died. There is much about the situation that I myself do not know, but my counsel to you is this: Numinex created sil dir vo—the Living Soul—so he could escape his prison. They had trapped his body, so he created another one. Do you understand?"_

The wait for Acajou to think through the conversation was long, but the Old One was nothing if not patient, and so he silently regarded Acajou as she shuffled in the snow, fanning the sail on her back and wracking her brain for the connection. _"Wouldn't he need to_...," she half started, and then she stopped to think some more.

Paarthurnax decided to give her a nudge in the right direction. "_Think about what happened to you."_

The emerald aurora rippled overhead, casting Acajou-colored light on the whirling snow. Thinking back to her first day as a dragon, she wondered how long it had been since she had come to the mountain with Delphine. She felt like she hadn't been a human in years.

_"Someone tried to kill him?" _she guessed.

_"He wished for someone to kill him,"_ Paarthurnax corrected. _"What other way was there for him to free himself?"_

_"He could have asked someone for help. Why didn't he ask you?"_

The silver dragon shook his head. _"By the time I was finally able to reach him, he was too far gone to ask me for help-even becoming hostile towards me when I attempted to burn the yoke holding him. However, you show wisdom, Dovahkiin. Numinex had a vovahzahfahdon within Dragonsreach, a mortal who worked to enable me to come visit my friend for the few times I was able. His name was Romos Ineskel—the court wizard of Dragonsreach in the time of the one they called Olaf One-Eye. Romos was... aan dovah askk. The dov lore was laas to him. Numinex was able to win his cooperation because he allowed Romos to study him. It was a truly desperate decision."_

The gears in Acajou's brain were turning more quickly now. _"Numinex asked Romos to kill him so he could leave his old body behind and escape Dragonsreach, right?"_ If her brow could furrow, it would have as soon as she finished her thought. _"But why didn't Romos just set him free in the first place, if they were such good friends?"_

_"Niid. Vovahzahfahdon- Romos was a false friend to Numinex. He would not have freed Numinex from his horrible prison even if I had put my teeth to his throat. He cared only for the research that the Jarl's pet provided him with. Paak unslaad-the suffering Numinex underwent at the hands of that monster to win his freedom must have been vanmindoraan."_ Paarthurnax huffed through his nostrils.

Acajou shuffled uncomfortably, thinking of the many times she had stood on the Great Porch and stared up at the huge wooden yoke, marveling at how useful it must have been for Olaf to have that installed in his castle. _"So Romos Ineskel was aan bruniik joor,"_ she said, not thinking of the words she used.

The great white dragon fixed a peculiar gaze on his pupil before replying. _"He was a very, very bad man,"_ he agreed. _"Worse than the Jarl, for Olaf did nothing but gloat about his prisoner; but Numinex was no helpless victim. Romos's treatment of my zeymah was due, in part, by Numinex himself. Romos worshipped Numinex, but one cannot worship a nameless dragon without going mad themselves."_  
_  
"Nameless?"  
_  
_"The word 'numinex' holds no meaning in our tongue," _Paarthurnax said. _"It is an echo of what he used to be called, but his true name has been lost to the centuries. Not even his zeymah can remember his Shout."_

Acajou perked up. "_So, if Numinex made Romos go crazy too, then he won out in the end, right? He tricked Romos into 'killing' him so he could use the Living Soul and then he escaped. And,"_ she continued breathlessly, _"we can find out his real name and Shout him back from wherever he is and ask him how to fix me!"  
_  
_"Prem, Dovahkiin. It was not that simple."_

Lowering himself from his Word Wall, he stretched out his time-beaten body under the flawless sky. His voice was heavy with loss when he spoke again. _"If a dovah is killed by one other than the Dovahkiin, their body dies, but their soul does not. For thousands of years before Alduin's return, I meditated on Monahven and listened to the whispers of my brothers' souls from their burial mounds. The only voice I have not heard on the winds of Nirn has been Numinex's._

_"I cannot tell you what happened between dov and joor after I left Dragonsreach for the last time. The Greybeards at the time-predecessors of the four that you know-were the ones who informed me of Numinex's skull decorating the Throne Room of the hofkahsejun. What I do know is this: Numinex was able to use the Living Soul, but in some terrible trick of dez, his soul was silenced, and there was no Dovahkiin in those days to silence him."_

Acajou was almost afraid to ask_. "What happened to the court mage?"  
_  
_"Krosis. I do not know. But hear me well, Dovahsebrom. Numinex's madness was-is-infectious. The whole of Dragonsreach is fouled with it. Anyone who met Romos, anywhere his step landed, would have been exposed to the soul-deep despair that plagued my brother for the last years of his life. A mad dragon's dur, his curse, does not die."_ Turning his face, he stared down at the world with milky blue eyes, looking back on the past, searching through his memories for something that would help his pupil.

_"It was a terrible oversight to not inform you of this backstory sooner. Unslaad krosis."_

For a while, the singing wind and blowing snow were the only sounds on the mountaintop. The inner fire at the dragons' cores kept them from feeling the cold, iced as they were, but Acajou, thinking of Numinex, trapped for years as a court mage's plaything, made her shiver suddenly.

_"He was soul trapped, wasn't he?"_

Paarthurnax said nothing, but his silence was as good an affirmation as any.

The blood dragon suddenly felt very, very vulnerable as she crouched in the snow beside the oldest living dovah on Nirn. She looked at the twin sails of her wings, studying the dark veins lacing the membrane, thinking of Numinex struggling to escape a mad wizard's spell, his wings beating in futile sweeps as the golden light of his soul was stolen from him the moment he had broken from his cage.

_"It may well be,"_ Paarthurnax said at last, _"that this will have no effect on your search do undo this Thu'um. If I am incorrect in my assumption of the events that took place, then Romos Ineskel is long dead, and Numinex's soul is lost to fate, and I will be glad of it." _His deep voice rumbled in Acajou's chest. _"But I cannot lie to myself, or you. You are tied to the zoor, now, and you must see it to its end."_

Acajou buried her nose miserably in the snow, melting it with a blasting exhale. Despite the somber mood, Paarthurnax thrummed a low chuckle. _"Faas niid," _he said, "_I am at fault for all of this. Whatever you ask of me, I will do; whatever assistance you require from me, I will provide. Hio kos fahdon. Zu'u vahrin hio."_

Looking up into the wise face of the ancient dragon, Acajou felt her apprehension recede. If both Paarthurnax _and _Delphine helped her, surely they would succeed. Her mood brightened. Perhaps Delphine would finally be able to see that Paarthurnax was a true friend after all, and not some vicious, bloodthirsty monster like she wanted to believe. She pounded the ground with her tail in joy. This was it! She could bring the Blades and the Greybeards together _and _get her body back! She burbled at her good fortune.

"_It's settled, then!" _she announced to the coming dawn, blushing rosy pink on the eastern horizon. With two powerful bounds she was back up the slope of Monahven's peak, slipping all over the icy rocks in a gawky display of complete uncoordination. Clinging for dear life to an unsteady boulder, she called down to an amused Paarthurnax, _"With all of us working together, there's absolutely no way we can fail. I wasn't worried for a second!" _She wobbled precariously on the rock as her great weight shifted it slightly down the slope.

_Drem. _Paarthurnax held the word in his heart for one last moment, drawing its meaning into his soul as he stared up at Acajou's wobbly silhouette against the sky. The Dovahkiin, _Keizaal hun, _imminent conqueror of Alduin and all dragons once under his rule. _Drem. _

* * *

_More excuses! I bought a beautiful gaming computer to play Skyrim on! To say that I am happy to finally play Skyrim on high settings for the first time is an understatement._

_With this chapter, I had to tiptoe around a lot of canon, and make up a whole bunch of stuff. I hope I haven't stomped on your suspension of disbelief too much. _

_Anyway, thank you very much for being patient with me and especially for reading this story. Thanks awfully to Agent 94, Kai'ika95, thuggie, MadameHyde, and the guest for reviewing. I am very happy to have such encouraging readers._

_Translations!_

_alok nu - arise now / wake up _

_dahmaan zu - remember me _

_zu'u in - I am your master_

_het. nok. - (I lie) here. _

_Zu aav - join me _

_Onikaan - Wisdom._

_Gray - zeymahzin - Ally, true friend._

_Zeymah - Brother_

_Mir - Allegiance_

_Tey do - Story of_

_vovazahfahdon - untrue friend, two faced friend_

_aan dovah askk - lover of dragons _

_laas - Life_

_paak unslaad - many indignities _

_vonmindoraan - incomprehensible_

_aan bruniik joor - a savage person _

_prem - patience_

_hofkasejun - the dragon word for Dragonsreach_

_faas niid - worry not_

___Hio kos fahdon. Zu'u vahrin hio_ - You are my friend. I am yours.  



	12. Get Mad

_Skyrim and all related characters and situations belong to Bethesda._

* * *

**The Road to Kynesgrove  
**

Chapter XII: Get Mad

Delphine was brooding in the corner when the call to arms came in.

_She's fine. She's a dragon. She's got teeth and claws. Sure, she doesn't know how to use her wings. And sure, she doesn't know how to fight either. But she's very good at running. And hiding. Maybe. She can practically walk up the side of a mountain. She'll be fine. You'll leave here when Esbern finds something out and you'll go back and she'll be waiting and stupid and fat as ever. _

Readjusting her perch on the chest she was hunched on, she stuffed her hands into her armpits and buried her chin in her armored chest, glaring down at her legs. Esbern had been frozen in the main hall for days, surrounded by hills of open books and scribbled-upon parchments. Any attempt to talk to him had been met with an abrupt motion of his hands, and a small noise in his throat that she had taken to mean, "Go away."

And so Delphine, the cold-hearted Blademaster, had been reduced to becoming a fretting mother hen, worrying constantly about a dragon half a continent away and hating herself for it. The recruits, tired of being targets for her severely shortened temper, had exiled themselves to the training grounds, even opting to sleep under the stars in their bedrolls if it meant avoiding her in Sky Haven's narrow stone passages.

_She's fine. She's fine. She's fine._

_She's probably dead._

"Shut up," Delphine muttered under her breath, shoving off of the chest. Her boots struck angrily on the stone floor as she began to pace back and forth in front of the empty fireplace. Couldn't Esbern hurry up, for Shor's sake? Surely he was good enough at dead languages by now to not need days upon days of poring over material to translate one sentence. If she had to wait one more minute to get her answer, she'd go crazy.

"Blademistress?"

"What?" Delphine's bark echoed off of the walls as she whirled towards the doorway. Erandur stood there, his face hidden in the shadow of his cloak hood. To her surprise, he was shrugging on the breastplate of his heavy armor.

"I thought I instructed you to train with light armor, trainee," she said sourly.

"Yes, Blademistress, you did." His voice was infuriatingly polite. "I thought you would like to know that there is a dragon over the skies of The Reach, and we are going to do battle with the beast."

"Where?" She was tying her sword hilt to her belt even before he had finished speaking.

"It flew off towards the northwest. We were hoping to catch it before the day's end."

Delphine plucked her helmet out of the open chest at the foot of her cot. _Finally, a way to blow off some steam. _"I'll join you."

* * *

It didn't take them long to find and follow the dragon's path. Everywhere the monster's shadow fell, farmers and travelers fled in the opposite direction, often running into the band of four armored warriors making their steady way towards the battlefield. Once or twice, Delphine stopped them and asked where they had last seen the dovah; the answers were hurried, panicked and generally unhelpful.

"Where is it?" Sven moaned. Each of his heavy steps kicked up clouds of dust. "We've been walking for_ever _and haven't even seen so much as a scale! I want to flex my sword arm!"

From the lead, Delphine cast an annoyed glance back at her Riverwood charge.

"I find myself increasingly amazed at our opponents' ability to hide," Erandur said as they followed the path through the empty countryside. "Instead of always swinging our swords at straw targets, we should take time to focus on developing our ability to flush dragons out of hiding—or, Lady Mara favoring, surprising them."

"I think it would be very hard to surprise anything if we don't teach our music man a thing or two about keeping quiet," Mjoll said, a smile in her voice and eyes. Her hand rested easily on her sword and she walked with a spring in her step.

"You heard that, right, bard?" Erandur called up to the struggling man behind Delphine. "If you shut up, you might get a chance of drawing some blood before you panic when the dragon sees you."

"As soon as this big lizard shows its ugly face, I'll knock it out of the sky faster than you can conjure yourself a hole to hide in," Sven bragged, puffing his chest out and carelessly swinging his battleaxe, nearly taking off Mjoll's arm in the process. "So stick _that _in your tankard and— _ooph!_"

All of a sudden, Delphine had flung her arm across his chest to halt his progress and, when Sven opened his mouth to complain, she put a finger to her lips and glared at him with narrowed eyes. The light wind gusted over them, filling the air with fluttering leaves, as the clouds gently coasted along with the breeze and dragged shadows along the ground. They waited a few seconds in the restless wilderness before Delphine got her answer: the far away, echoing roar of a dragon accompanied by the shriek of air against beating wings.

_Finally, _she thought as her heart began to pound in her chest. _We found it. _She pointed at the ground.

Mjoll and Erandur immediately took the hint, crouching on their knees in the moist soil; the battle-maiden had a steady hand over Grimsever's hilt and Erandur's calm fingers glowed blue with a prepared spell.

Sven clutched his battleaxe in both fists and stared, wild-eyed, at the sky. "Where is it?" he snarled with as much bravado as he could muster. "Just stay behind me and let me at it."

"Sven!" Mjoll hissed. "Get down, you fool! It's going to see you!"

"S-so what? Let it see me. I'm a Blade and that means I am bred to be a dragonslayer!" Thumping his chest with one fist, he took one step past Delphine up the slope. "Come at me!" he cried to the empty sky.

Impatiently, Delphine planted one ungentle hand on Sven's back and shoved him to the ground. "If you are going to be an idiot," she snapped, "you may do so on your own. When you are with us, you will do nothing that endangers the group— and that includes calling attention to yourself when the rest of us are trying to be covert. Do I make myself clear?"

The bard opened his mouth to answer, but his words were engulfed in a roar that shook the very earth under their feet. This time even Delphine dropped to her knees in the dirt, slipping her bow from her back and readying a steel arrow as the incoming dragon's wings beat closer with each stroke. They still couldn't see their target but, judging from the proximity of its call, only the slope of the earth was obscuring it from view.

_This time should be easy, _she thought, reassured when she looked back at her recruits. Even Sven, dirt-smeared and brainless as he was, had shown some improvement since the last time she had seen him. _And this time, _she mused joyfully, _I only have one idiot to worry about._

Flipping over onto her back, propped up on her elbows, Delphine raised her eyes to the cerulean sky just as their bounty crested the hill, sailing low enough for the budding trees to scrape the marbled green scales of its belly.

_Green, _Delphine thought dully as the dragon flashed across the sun. _Of course it _would _be green._

The dragon dipped one leathery wing and banked slowly, scales flashing a multitude of springtime colors in the sunlight. It was a blood dragon, all right, and its crested head, sailed back, and fanned tail were all exact matches of her idiot Dragonborn leader's. The same eyes, the same face, the same soft, vulnerable belly and throat.

_That could be Acajou_. The unbidden thought came into her mind before she could halt it and she shook her head to focus on her task. Of course, it wasn't Acajou; even if she _could _fly, Acajou wasn't brainless enough to soar around in hostile country in broad daylight, screaming loud enough to wake the dead and buzzing the ground like a hawk after a rabbit.

_Actually, she is, _Delpine corrected herself mournfully. Heaving a sigh and nocking an arrow, the Blade counted her blessings that she could at least tell the difference between a feral blood dragon and her supposed leader. Somehow, Acajou still exhibited human mannerisms that told her apart from the monsters whose shape she shared. Plus, Acajou could _never _be as graceful in the sky as a dragon that had been flying all of its life. Delphine was almost positive that if Acajou tried to take wing, she'd go careening into the side of a mountain and break her stupid neck.

"All right, everyone," she said, her voice steady and her aim sure. "Remember what you've been taught, and we'll all come out of this in one piece."

She drew her bowstring back, feeling its tension in her fingers, sighting her wheeling target.

Erandur held his Amulet of Mara to his lips. "Come to me, Mara, for without you—!"

Delphine's released her arrow on a whistle of air but, even as it raced through the sky, she saw that she had misjudged and clicked her tongue in anger. The bolt passed several feet in front the dragon's face, disappearing harmlessly into the blue. The effect was immediate. With astounding quickness for a beast of that size, the blood dragon banked towards their direction and picked them out immediately. A furious roar burst from its throat as it swooped down to meet them.

"Come and get it, asshole!" Delphine thundered, shaking her bow above her head. Next to her, Sven let out a noise akin to a man getting donkey-kicked in the lower back.

Erandur hid his smile in his sleeve. "Gonna work on that warcry, buddy?"

Sven colored pink all the way past his collar. "What did I say about talking to me in battle, long ears?"

A quick motion from Delphine silenced them but the orders she was about to issue died in her throat as the blood dragon dropped to hover in front of them and met her challenging gaze. Its golden eyes and comically narrow snout were Acajou's, and Delphine couldn't help but think back to when Acajou had attacked those bandits that had jumped her, her face twisted into a mask of rage, blood spilling from her teeth. In battle, Acajou's dragon soul took over and ruled her actions. She was no different than the feral dovah after all.

Doubts rising, her muscles relaxed. "Acajou?" she asked. The other three Blades exchanged quizzical glances. For a fragment of a second, the four fighters were frozen on the hilltop, and the wind produced by the dragon's wings was gentle and quiet.

Delphine's hand twitched and loosened its grip on her bow. Without warning, the dragon swooped forwards with an open mouth, gullet gaping dark and endless. Delphine's entire field of vision was filled with teeth.

_Oh. Definitely not Acajou._

The tip of a sword eclipsed the sparkling white daggers, followed by the rest of a blade, a hilt, a hand, an arm: before Delphine could form the name on her lips, she had been pushed onto her back and only glimpsed the tawny mane of Mjoll the Lioness before she tumbled roughly down the slope. Grimsever sang as it split a red line in the dragon's snout, shredding the scales and exposing crimson muscle and bone. Expecting to see blood, Mjoll's eyes widened when she instead beheld a flood of black light, mottled and ugly, that burst into the sky from the dragon's wound.

And then, before their eyes, the dragon began to change. The emerald scales, jagged spines, and papery wings warped and altered, as if Mjoll's sword had split the strings holding it together. The scales became leaves, some green and living, others dead as the ground under their feet. Its spines split and darkened and became broken twigs, stripped of their bark. The wings lost their streamlined efficiency and became lumpy masses of dead grass that shivered with every step the wyrm took. In a slow wave, from nose to tail, the dragon shook itself free of its facade and became a moving mountain of plant matter.

"What in Oblivion…?" Mjoll breathed.

The dragon reared its head, a furious hiss bubbling in its throat and fixed a cold eye, now black as a raven's wing, at Mjoll. She barely had time to bring her shield up before the wyrm swung its neck like a club and slammed its crested head into her body. Whatever its body was made of, it was still solid as a rock. The shield buckled like a stepped-on piece of gold and Mjoll saw stars as the bones in her forearm splintered. The force of the blow sent her flying backwards; her helmet rang like a bell as she smacked into a clump of rocks and landed in a dazed heap, her good hand still desperately clutching the hilt of her beloved sword. Her only attempt at getting up was cut short when she realized her hip was either dislocated or broken. With a single flick of its wings, the dragon was on the ground. It closed its jaws around Mjoll just as Sven, with a half-panicked scream, smashed his battleaxe against its side. A serpent-quick tail sweep clubbed him across the chest. Felled like a tree, he landed in a half-conscious heap that the dragon barely missed crushing to death as it launched itself from the ground again.

Dizzy but intact, Delphine pushed herself to her feet, abandoning her bow to draw her slim and deadly sword. Above her, their adversary halted its flight to hover over her, sucking in air through its nostrils.

_Oh, gods. It can still Shout._

Seeing the telltale glow flickering behind its teeth, Delphine bunched the muscles in her arm and hurled her blade with all the energy she could muster. Tumbling end over end, the sword punched a hole in the dovah's left wing and embedded several inches in its flank. More black light hissed out of its wounds as it landed on the hilltop. To Delphine's horror, her sword fell to the earth, harmless as a fly. She couldn't even see the mark it had made in the dragon's side.

"Erandur, get over there and help Mjoll!" she barked, frustration at herself making her voice rise easily over the dragon's angry snarling. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the woozy bard stumbling around uphill, fumbling with all of the equipment he had dropped. "Sven! Good gods, why are you all the way over _there? _Get over here and help us!"

Their adversary gathered itself and lunged for her almost before she could finish her sentence. Its wide eyes were eager for bloodshed and, shaking off her shock, Delphine again saw the echo of Acajou's face.

The leaves on its body fluttered in the sunlight.

_It's not her. Focus, damn it._

The dragon had forgotten her sword, but Delphine hadn't. Heart in her throat, she sprinted towards the wyrm and, at the last second, dove under its jaw just as it snapped its teeth at her approaching form. Rolling to absorb the shock of her fall, she pushed herself back to her feet and ran under the length of the blood dragon's belly, noting the eerie lack of heat despite being so close to its core. She reached her sword just as the dragon whipped around.

Her sinewy sword arm came up and she slashed a deep line all the way through the dovah's uninjured wing, thinking of how it felt when Acajou had clouted her in the head when she had applied the poultice. Again, the dark substance burst from the wound. The dragon kicked out with a hindleg tipped with talons the size of shortswords, missing her body by precious inches, and Delphine rewarded it with a fierce stab to the flank. With a fierce snarl, Delphine embedded the sword in as far as she dared before pulling it out, quick as an insect sting. Grass and sticks fluttered around her, torn free from the dragon's body. Whirling around in a semicircle, it snarled something vicious at her; she answered with a spinning slash to the side of the neck, backpedaling just out of the way as the dagger teeth closed on air right in front of her face.

_Don't you ever bare your teeth towards me again if you want to live, dragon!_

She couldn't believe she had been so stupid as to hesitate when faced with her mortal enemy. Now Mjoll was inches from death— and Delphine wasn't far from that same fate— because she had gotten complacent. She just hoped that Mjoll wouldn't pay for the mistake with her life.

With Delphine trying desperately to draw the strange wyrm away from their downed comrade, Erandur dashed to Mjoll's side. Unconscious and white as bone, she looked dead already, a thought that had Erandur's hands glowing with his most powerful healing magic without bothering to feel for a pulse. The dragon's teeth had sliced her to ribbons. He felt her life fluttering in her body like a butterfly held between his hands: he had but to part his fingers and she would be gone. Gritting his teeth, his forehead clouded with concentration, he set to work.

"You're gonna be fine, Mjoll," he said under his breath, trying not to pay attention to the sounds of the battle taking place behind him. "You're always acting like you're hard to kill, but getting this close is a little ridiculous, don't you think?"

Predictably, she did not answer. He kept talking to her, silly little things like telling her the sky was blue and the weather was clear, just so she could hear a familiar voice, wherever she was, and follow it back to where they were all waiting for her.

"Erandur! Watch out!"

Snapping his gaze over his shoulder, the dark elf's eyes widened with surprise at the sight of the dragon reared over them both, sides flaring out with a huge intake of breath that had the wind whistling in his ears. One swing of its tail flattened Delphine onto her back and Erandur could hear the crack of her helmet against the rocky ground. Her fight was over.

Changing tactics, Erandur's hands came together in a greater ward just as the dragon expelled a plume of black fire at him that singed all of the grass on the hilltop to a charred black. Delphine instinctively flinched away from the heat, her eyes instantly dry and her skin prickling painfully. Making himself as small as possible behind his ward, Erandur poured all of his magicka reserves into holding out against the Shout.

"Come to me, Mara," he panted, sweat slicking down his face. "May your love grant me the strength to withstand this!"

His magicka was draining out of him with alarming speed. If the wave of hellfire didn't end soon, there wouldn't be enough of either of them to sweep under a rug. And then there was a crash of metal, followed by a squeal of pain. Erandur opened his eyes to see Sven's shield lying crushed on the ground, and the dragon sporting a gash that spanned the width of its nose. The blackness streamed like a curtain into the air.

Above him, standing on a rock with his battleaxe raised, the bard trumpeted, "I am _Pookmeyzol_! How'd'ya like **that** move, Dunmer?" His knees were visibly quaking.

Erandur didn't know which was worse— the exhausting pain of drained magicka or the burning embarrassment of being saved by Sven, of all people. He was in too much pain to fire back with a retort.

Rearing back on its legs, the dragon began to beat its wings furiously, long, powerful strokes that tore the dead grass from the scorched ground and turned the hilltop into a maelstrom. It dropped back down heavily, and one stray movement of its foot pinned Delphine into the mud, crushing the breath out of her lungs and cracking her ribs like dead twigs.

_Acajou, stop, _she thought senselessly, watching the dragon writhe above her. _It's me._

When its foot lifted again, Delphine knew that the damage had been done. Fighting for breath against the creeping darkness in her vision, she rolled to the side and saw Erandur again kneeling at the fallen Mjoll's side, her body glowing golden with his healing magic, and the dragon approaching them both with death written on its face. Blurrily, she saw Sven swiping at the dragon's lowering head with wide, almost panicked swings of his axe; the three of them looked small and harmless as pebbles compared to the dovah. She coughed, tasting copper and feeling something warm dribble out from between her lips, and tried to get up again. Pain in her midsection forced her into a ball; the fuzzy feeling in her head erased all thoughts but one: this is what her hesitation had bought her. They were all going to die.

Two cracks of lightning pierced the air, turning the whole world a blinding white. The hilltop shook with twin cracks of thunder that sent birds screaming in every direction. Even with her eyes dazzled by the light, Delphine knew the hands that produced that kind of magicka. She tried to scream, to tell Esbern to run, to save himself, but there was nothing left in her to produce sound. Beneath her palms, the mountain bucked as the dragon's huge bulk pushed off of the ground, the wind whistling through the holes in its wings.

Despairing at the powerful strokes of its shoulders and its furious cry, Delphine thought, _We haven't even made it bleed._

The dragon's shadow engulfed her again, and this time she didn't bother opening her eyes.

* * *

When she came to, she was flat on her back and her body felt like an anchor attached to her neck. Each heartbeat slammed like a hammer on her injured ribs.

It took her a moment to realize that she was laying in her cot at Sky Haven Temple and someone was covering her with a quilted blanket. Soft murmuring filled the room, along the crackling sound of a freshly made fire. She made a move to get up and froze when pain stabbed through her midsection as if boiling water had been poured over it. A shadow fell over her bed.

"Don't try to move right now," Esbern told her sternly, his voice tight with worry. "Give the healing magic time to knit your bones back together or, I promise you, you'll never walk again."

As loathe as she was to follow orders, she was grateful for the fact that she wasn't well enough to stir from her bed. Discovering that it hurt too much to fully inhale, she breathed in small sips of air, wincing as her lungs burned.

"How did you find us?" she asked weakly. Esbern adjusted the blanket around her shoulders.

"I looked."

She nodded slowly, as if his vague comment made sense. "We almost died," she whispered.

"I know." Esbern's voice was quiet. Too quiet. Sudden fear made her heart swell. She reached out to him and managed to brush her fingers against his pant leg before she was seeing stars from the pain.

"What about Mjoll and the others?"

Esbern moved to the side to allow her to see three other cots pushed up against the walls. The blankets on each were lumpy, heaped over forms that looked more dead than alive. Delphine's eyes brimmed over with tears; she forced them back with sheer willpower. The older Blade reached down with a cool cloth and briskly rubbed it over her face.

"They wouldn't be in here if they were dead," he said, misreading her emotion. She shook her head fiercely, her eyes boring into his.

"It's my fault," she said. "I wasn't focused. I hesitated before the first strike. I am unfit to lead them."

The fire popped and danced in the silence between them. Esbern sighed and sat on the very edge of her cot, his weight not even enough to make the sheets wrinkle.

"I expected this would happen." The lack of accusation in his voice took her by surprise. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

"You mean to say that you knew my heart was weak enough for such a thing to happen," she said, her voice sour.

"You jump to conclusions too much, Delphine. I think that is one of your greatest weaknesses."

If Delphine had been able to move, she would have turned over and buried her face in the pillow. As it was, she could only heave a sigh and stare at the shadows dancing on the ceiling. They looked like dragons fighting.

"I wouldn't dare accuse you of having a coward's heart." Esbern's words were heavy. "In the past few weeks you have borne a double burden. To be a Blade and a dragon's guardian would strain even the strongest soul."

She bit her lips, not quite listening to Esbern's reassuring words. "That was not a normal dragon we were fighting," she said, almost to herself.

"That was not a normal dragon you were fighting," Esbern agreed, taking her hand in hers. Her palm was suddenly filled with something hard and heavy; at first she thought he had given her a chunk of iron. Giving him a questioning look, she held it up to her eyes. With the fire blinking off of its many smooth sides, the black soul gem gave her the uneasy feeling of being watched.

"What's this supposed to mean?"

Esbern cleared his throat and nodded to her hand. "_That_ is your dragon."

She snorted and almost passed out from the pain it caused. "Don't…treat me like I'm stupid," she grated out. "A dragon's soul cannot fit in a soul gem this small."

"You have to believe me, Delphine. That is the gem where that dragon's soul was housed."

The gem was warm in her hand and made her fingers tingle. "Esbern," she said, trying to keep her voice level. "You found something out, didn't you?"

Esbern shifted uncomfortably on the bed and stood up. She could hear his knees creak. "I found that I have the scribbled ramblings of a madman in my possession. I found that, for all of the books and essays and scraps of paper in my possession, I know next to nothing about dragon lore. The deeds that can be accomplished by a dragon's soul are truly endless and terrible." His knotty hands clenched.

"Delphine, Acajou's been poisoned by the Shout. We've already failed."

* * *

_This story was in vfib. That's a shockable rhythm. :) Thank you always to the people who read this story. I can't wait to tell you the rest of it. Thanks to nachosforever, thug, MadameHyde, Agent 94, and Saphire Basil for reviewing. Until next time!__  
_

_OH WHAT'S THAT CHAPTER THIRTEEN IS ALREADY WRITTEN _


	13. Uh - Oh

_Skyrim and all related characters and situations belong to Bethesda._

* * *

**The Road to Kynesgrove**

XIII: Uh Oh

Farkas lay upon his fur-heaped bed in Jorrvaskr with his massive hands behind his head, his keen ears pricked to the sound of his fellow shieldsiblings twitching and muttering in their dreams. Every so often, the mead hall would creak and groan, phantom noises caused by the high, blustery Frostfall winds. Soft candlelight flickered off of the highly polished Skyforge swords and battleaxes hanging proudly on racks that lined the walls. Empty sets of leather, iron, and steel armor stood sentinel over the sleeping inhabitants of Jorrvaskr's living quarters. Dawn was creeping towards Whiterun, and Farkas hadn't slept a wink. He was thinking about Delphine.

Actually, he was thinking about a great many things. Delphine just happened to be attached, in some way or another, to all of them. At least, that's what he kept telling himself to excuse the fact that his mind kept wandering back to her.

_Come on, man, _he thought with a hard exhale, rubbing one hand along the scruffy stubble on his jawline. _She's old enough to be your grandmother. At least your mother. _His forehead furrowed, thinking of her eyes. _Well, maybe your aunt._

Across the room, Vilkas shifted on his bed, tossing his arm over his eyes. Restlessly, he kicked at the tanned cave bear pelt tangled between his legs. Farkas could sympathize. He was feeling edgy, too. He hadn't stopped feeling edgy since the pack first came upon Acajou in the woods outside of Whiterun. The whole situation was too strange for him to comprehend. The only thing he was good at was following his leader. It mattered not that the Harbinger was a dragon. He was a man of loyalties. He would follow her anywhere. But his intuition was screaming at him that he—and the rest of the Companions—had gotten themselves into something very, very risky. Delphine—_there I go, thinking about her again—_treated Acajou like she was made of glass. Acajou herself was as cautious as a deer, refusing to talk about the subject, about what had actually happened. As far as he knew, she was still up on the Throat of the World, taking cover with the Graybeards like a child hiding from a punishment from its parents. And then there was that business with the journal, with Lost Soul's Shrine, and that strange figure that had ambushed them while they were journeying northwest.

It was too much to think about. _Not even sunup and I already have a headache. _He pinched the bridge of his crooked nose—broken in a fight with his brother some years back—and swung his legs over the side of his bed. Laying there, trying to think of solutions to questions he didn't want to ask, was only going to confuse him more. It had been a while since he had seen the sunrise, anyway.

Tying the drawstrings of his brown linen trousers tightly around his waist, he padded barefoot to the corner of the room where he had thrown his shirt the night before. Even when it was clean, it reeked faintly of sweat, a fact that Farkas was rather proud of. "You can't wash my hard work away," he'd say to Ria whenever she'd wrinkle her nose at his passing. He pulled it over his head as he shouldered open the door to Jorrvaskr's main hall.

Tilma was already awake and wiping down various silver plates and goblets left out on the main hall's many tables the night before. Old and reliable, Jorrvaskr's live-in maid was also strong and stubborn as a mule. She looked like a dead tree in Evening Star, but for all her wrinkles and white hair, she hadn't changed in personality or appearance since Farkas and Vilkas had come to Jorrvaskr many years before. He gave her a short nod when he caught her eye, and she nodded to him in return. "The fire pit's been made up and lit, although it's going to take some time for the wood to burn down and the flames to get hot enough to cook over," she said, her normally placid voice easily heard in the silence of the hall. "If you're hungry now, there's bread in the cupboard."

"No thanks. I'm going out."

Tilma turned her attention back to the silver platter she had been wiping off. "Might rain today."

She was right. As soon as Farkas opened the door to the training yard, he could smell rain on the wind. Behind the mountains off to the east, heavy gray clouds were splashed with dull pink. Before the end of the day, perhaps, it would rain, but for now, the sky above the Throat of the World was pale blue and clear. Stretching his arms in front of him, feeling his shirt strain to contain the muscles of his back, Farkas inhaled the brisk air through his nostrils and put all of his troubled thoughts out of his mind. The day was ahead of him. A day full of training and eating and reveling in the company of his shieldsiblings, where he didn't have to think about anything except the movement of his sword arm. Not Acajou, not strange figures ambushing him, not Delphine—_damn it, there I go thinking about her again._

He needed to pee.

Wandering out into the yard, he shot a few lazy glances over his shoulder as he undid the drawstrings of his pants. The sun hadn't yet broken above the mountains, but the soft morning light was getting stronger, chasing away the bluish murk of dawn, making the yard and its training dummies, the wall around Whiterun and Jorrvaskr itself, clearer and sharper all around him. His beast blood loved the morning. It smelled of dew being burned off the grass, of elk stirring in the woods, their heady scent masked by the heavy smell of pine and bark, of wilderness and freedom and the promise of the Hunt.

When he reached a patch of grass and dirt in the corner of the yard, where the wall separating the Plains District from the Wind District met the wall encircling Whiterun, he loosened his drawstrings and yawned as he relieved himself. Nearby, a bird alighted in a lavender bush. Farkas watched it for a while, and then his eyes wandered over his surroundings: the large stones in the wall, the dirt where he was doing his business, the practice dummies in the yard, the dragon head poking over the lip of the outer wall with its golden eyes fixed on him—

Farkas screamed.

"_Farkas, it's me!" _the dragon said.

Farkas screamed again for good measure, and then remembered to turn his back and lace up his trousers. "You scared the _shit _out of me," he accused over his shoulder as his trembling fingers fumbled with the drawstrings. For some reason, being seen with his junk hanging out of his trousers by Acajou the dragon was just as embarrassing as being seen by Acajou the human. His Harbinger, meanwhile, had one wing over the wall and was trying, in clumsy lunges, to get the rest of herself in the same position. Her sheer size amazed him. "What are you doing here?"

"_I've been hiding here all night. I needed to talk with you." _As she thrummed a laugh, Farkas noticed she had blood streaked from her snout to the crest above her brow. _"I didn't mean to interrupt."_

"You scared me." _Even though I should have smelled you a hundred miles off; what was I thinking? _"Where's all that blood from?"

A forked tongue flicked out from between her scaly lips. _"I ate a cow," _she confessed. _"All right, maybe two cows. You know, Farkas, I can't stop thinking about Delphine."_

_Me, neither. _"Why?"

"_I'm worried about her."_

Farkas ran a hand through his dark brown hair, pushing the strands away from his face. His earlier embarrassment had cooled; now he was intent on making sure his stupid screaming hadn't woken up anyone in Jorrvaskr. So far, the only person he heard moving inside was Tilma, and nothing short of death was going to take her away from polishing the silver.

"Worried how?"

Acajou slung her other wing over the wall, knocking off large chunks of stone and sending a small tremor through the ground under Farkas's feet. Her slitted eyes were expressionless as ever, but her voice was unsure. _"I don't know, I just feel…uneasy, somehow, whenever I think of her, so I'm leaving this morning to go west."_

"Whoa, whoa." Farkas held up his calloused hands. "Delphine told me to keep an eye on you until she got back. I don't think she'd like it if we came to her." _Wait, what? Why do I care what Delphine thinks?_

"_Yes, but what if she's hurt and can't make it back here?" _Acajou stretched her neck until the breath from her nostrils was stirring her shield brother's hair. _"Do you want to come with me?"_

Farkas was about to answer when the section of wall that Acajou was perched on groaned. Huge fissures split the stones on either side of her, and, smooth as butter, Acajou, along with a whole section of the wall, slid forward and crashed into Jorrvaskr's backyard. Farkas stumbled out of the way as the stones shattered and sent bits of rock skittering like hailstones in every direction. His Harbinger had landed on her neck with her wings braced in front of her, and was in the humiliating position of having her hind end and leaf-shaped tail waving around in the air. Even before she fell to her side with another earth-shaking _whoomph, _Farkas could hear men shouting and iron boots hammering on cobblestones. _The guards!_

"Get up!" he hissed at her, unable to do anything but watch she floundered like a trout to get back on her feet. "Go! You can't let the guards see you!" What would he say to them if they saw her? _Oh, hello, this is my Harbinger, she just finished wiping out a herd of cattle outside the gates, but she's really very nice so please don't kill her._

"_Are you coming, or not?" _she persisted. Torn, Farkas looked from her to Jorrvaskr's door to the pathways flanking the mead hall. The soldiers were already at the Gildergreen. It wouldn't take them long to find the source of the sound. There was no time to grab his gear, no time to tell his shieldsiblings, no time to think. He'd just have to tell Vilkas and the others what had happened when they got back. His Harbinger was depending on him. _Delphine_ was depending on him.

"Okay, okay. I'll come!" Farkas ran towards the new hole gaping in the wall, swallowing heavily when he saw that the only way down was a vertical drop from the mesa to solid, rocky ground below. The only things that would break his fall would be some scrubby grass and a tundra cotton plant. Acajou's crested head appeared over his shoulder as she, too, viewed their method of escape. A low hum vibrated in her throat.

"_Ready?" _she asked. Her breath smelled like woodsmoke.

"Ready for what?"

And then he was falling.

The werewolf let out his third embarrassing scream of the day as he pitched forwards over the lip of the broken wall and began a flailing tumble towards the ground. He heard a crunching rattle behind him, and then several impacts that sounded like boulders hitting the ground; his fall was instantly halted by something closing on his wind-billowed shirt. A blast of heat over his shoulders told him that Acajou had his shirt in her mouth, and she was not flying, but falling with him. A last minute flare of her wings stopped them from being dashed to pieces on the ground; nevertheless, the impact of her huge talons on the rocks made Farkas's teeth buzz. He felt like he had just been trampled by a mammoth.

"You can put me down, now," he said, his stomach rocking in his gut. She opened her jaws and merrily tossed her head when he landed in a heap in the dust.

"_Wasn't that fun? I can't fly yet but I can kind of coast!"_

"Fun," panted Farkas. "Sure."

"There it is!"

"Sound the alarm!"

_Thunk._

Farkas turned his head to look at the quivering shaft of the arrow that had landed several feet from where he and Acajou had landed. Craning her neck, Acajou counted the armored men that were peering down at them from the damaged wall. _"Three, four… six… um, let's say, ten." _Another arrow bounced off the rocks at her feet. _"I guess they've spotted us."_

"Yeah, well, hopefully they don't recognize that it's me that just helped a dragon escape after blowing a hole in the Jarl's wall," Farkas muttered under his breath as he backpedaled out of the way of another volley of arrows. Acajou watched the small black lances arch down towards her; and then her sides filled out, her mouth opened, and she split the air with three words: _"Feim zii gron!" _

Farkas watched in awe as Acajou's body shed its solidity like a duck sheds water. In an instant, her massive form was transparent as silk, enabling him to see through her, as if he were looking through gauze. The arrows passed through her and clattered harmlessly to the ground.

Tilting her chin up and giving him a sideways glance, she thrummed,_ "They'll only recognize you if you make a habit out of running around outside half naked with your trouser snake hanging out."_

"Ha, ha. Very funny, Harbinger." He stuffed the hem of his shirt into his pants, dancing out of the way out of more arrows. "Now can we please get a move on?"

Acajou's misty form took off at a steady, lumbering trot across the field, and Farkas, mouth twisted faintly at the idea of traversing the wilderness with no shoes, dutifully followed. For all of his massive strength, he had embarrassingly sensitive feet. _I can always transform when we get out of sight, _he thought. _But I have no clothes._

There was no way he'd let his Harbinger catch him with his pants down again.

* * *

Farengar had a splitting headache.

He knew it was dawn outside. Knew by the ache deep in his bones that he had gone another night without sleep. Knew that, despite his exhaustion, he would not sleep this day, either.

"Oh, Acajou," he muttered, "You're in too deep."

Massaging his temples, he peered from under his heavy brow at his surroundings. His study was a mess. There was more parchment visible on the floor than the actual floorboards. Nearly every book on dragon lore in his possession was propped open on any available surface he had been able to find. The journal had a place of honor on its very own table in the center of the room, and next to it….

He could barely get out of the chair he had collapsed into, and yet, when he thought of the mask, he found the energy to heave a sigh and cross the room to pick it up. This, too, was a piece of the puzzle that he couldn't place. Its design fit the description for a dragon priest mask, true, but none of his books had said anything about dragon priests carving their masks out of soul gems. And what else could this material be? Why would a priest need to carve a mask out of a soul gem, if the gem itself would be used to charge a weapon with the soul? Perhaps for show. Perhaps this mask belonged to a particularly powerful dragon priest with a penchant for extravagance.

And how did it end up in his possession in the first place? Try as he might, he could not remember how it had gotten into his study. He had woken up one morning, and it had been wrapped in cloth on his work table. He had asked Jarl Balgruf if it had been delivered by Delphine. No, no one had come to Dragonsreach, and no one had seen the mask but Farengar himself.

He tapped the mask against his palm, wracking his brain for answers. There were too many questions.

But… what answer was he seeking? The gaunt-faced wizard ran his thumb over the mask's cheek. Ah, yes. Acajou. He had to fix Acajou. He had to save her, to turn her back into a human. _After all, she must make it into Sovngarde. She is the only one who can defeat Alduin, and he is in Sovngarde, hiding like a coward, and she must follow him. _

He found himself walking up the steps to the Great Porch. His head was fuzzy, probably from lack of sleep. Soft blue light filtered in from the smoke vents in the ceiling, lighting his way. His steps were slow and even, as if he was in a trance. _I'm probably just tired. The cold will wake me up._

Holding the mask protectively against his chest, he opened the Porch doors and shuffled outside. The cold air bit his nose and ears sharply. How long had it been since he had seen the sun? Perhaps only a day.

The moon was already behind the mountains. The sky was dusky, pastel blue, waiting to be lit on fire by the orb of the sun that had not yet broken free from the horizon. Leaning as far out as he could over the edge of the balcony wall, Farengar studied the drop to the ground. Dragonsreach was supposed to make him feel as if he lived in the sky, a giant among men, but when he thought about it, being so high up made him realize how small he was, how inconsequential his actions were. _Dovah _were so much… more. That was the word. His heart clenched painfully. Why would Acajou want to be a human again, after sharing the skies? Why was he helping her take away his greatest dream?

"Because the world will end." Jerking his head behind him, Farengar sought the owner of the strange voice that had broken into his thoughts. He was alone on the balcony. It took him a moment to realize that it had been his own.

_I must be more tired than I thought. _He looked down at the mask. A smile came to his lips. His dreams would have to stay in his heart. He had a Dovahkiin so save.

_Would you like to see me?_

It was a quiet voice. He half thought he imagined it.

_You have but to say yes._

The tiny suggestion was hopeful, as if coming from a child. Playing along with his imagination, he said, "Yes," in a tone that did not sound like him at all. The wind kicked up around him, and he felt something approaching, but for some reason he could not tear his gaze away from the dragon priest mask in his hands.

"Yes," he said again, for no reason at all.

_Look._

* * *

Farkas felt it before he saw it.

Barely two miles out of Whiterun, the nip in the air dropped to a fierce chill in a matter of seconds. Despite the inner heat that his werewolf blood supplied to him—necessary for the times when he was caught outside in the snow after a transformation had worn off—Farkas felt the prickling coldness on his skin. His unease grew when he noticed that the birds that had been chirping and fluttering along the ground looking for worms and butterflies had become eerily quiet, and even the wind seemed to be holding its breath. Behind them, the sun flickered and disappeared. Thinking that the storm had blown up and caught them, he turned to see when the downpour would start and was met with the sight of a thunderhead descending on the far-off Whiterun, huge and misshapen and nearly black with unshed rain. The vaguely uneasy feeling he had been experiencing earlier bloomed into full-on horror. The wolf inside of him snarled _that's it, that's it, that's what you've feared this whole time._

"Oh, gods," he said.

Acajou, solid again now that her Shout had worn off, craned her neck over him. Her huge heart stuttered in her breast as her yellow eyes widened to take in the sight of Whiterun under siege. As the cloud dropped low enough to engulf the proud structure of Dragonsreach, the sail on her back flattened. _"What is that?" _

Farkas was about to ask her how in Oblivion he was supposed to know what it was, when he saw what she was asking about. The cloud was moving, not as a storm moves, but as if it was clay being shaped by a potter's hands. There were no flashes of lightning, no sheets of rain. Billowing and shrinking, warped by the wind, a massive form took shape in the depths of the tempest.

Acajou's head sank, and when she softly said, _"Farkas,"_ there was a tremor in her voice because the clouds had whirled together and reared upwards, and suddenly it was a storm no longer, it was a dragon, a dragon as big as Whiterun itself, with its long neck crooked and its head hanging over the Great Porch in Dragonsreach. It flung open its wispy wings to encircle the city, and the rain broke and fell in an avalanche over the Companions' home. Wind-tossed and restless as an aspen, the monster heaved and grew and sank, its body changing shape but its head staying crystal-cut in the sky. Its eye sockets seemed deep enough to drown in.

A voice was screaming inside the Dragonborn's head, a voice she could not recognize, a new chord in the choir of souls she had eaten. _Zu'u nahlaas! _

"It's Alduin," Farkas said hoarsely. His hand went reflexively to his side, and he cursed inwardly when his fingers closed on empty air. _If there ever was a time to have a sword…._

"_No, not Alduin,"_ Acajou said, but the uncertainty in her voice was far from reassuring. She knew Alduin's voice, his shape, the nature of his soul—but this dragon reeked of death, just like the World Eater. They watched as Whiterun became smaller and smaller compared to the storm-dragon's growing bulk. _"But whatever it is, we have to stop it."_

"Aye. But how?"

Never a fast thinker, Acajou felt the pressure squeezing at her temples. How long did she have to save Whiterun? Were they already too late? If she could just tell her body to fly, she'd be able to get there faster, but how would she fight it once she arrived? You couldn't fight a storm.

…A _storm_!

She felt the Shout growing within her before she had finished her thought. Pouring all of her energy into the words, she roared out, "_LOK VAH KOOR_!" Her Companion was flung to the ground with the report of the words being forced into existence.

For one breathless moment, nothing happened.

Acajou waited, poised, tense, fighting back exhaustion from using her Words of Power.

"Look!" Farkas needlessly pointed to where the first rays of sun were piercing through the squall. The dragon's head whipped up and backwards, its great mouth opening wide enough to swallow the peak of Monahven—and then the clouds unwove themselves, whirling away with the wind, lifting from Whiterun and parting to let the morning shine down on the soaking city. The dragon's wings became innocent wisps of mist that, on one last phantom upstroke, were burned away by sunlight.

Shivering, Acajou dropped her muzzle into the dirt at her feet, closing her eyes. The dragon's image was still burned on the back of her lids, and her heart sized with fear. The souls inside of her consciousness fluttered like a flock of nervous birds.

"Acajou?" Farkas put a questioning hand on the side of her neck. The plates of her grass green scales were smooth, smoother than he thought they'd be. He had once gotten to hold a piece of moonstone that that been on the body of a miner he had killed when he was new to the beast blood, and his Harbinger's scales were just as silky at it had felt in his palm. He ran his fingers over one of the dull spikes on her shoulder and knelt by her side. "You all right?"

"_I'm good," _she said, raising her head a little. _"I just need a second to catch my breath."_

He grinned into her eyes—still sturdy as ever—and patted her shoulder as he would a favorite steed. "Good job," he said. Looking off to the east, he took in the welcome sight of Whiterun basking in the sun. His patting became absent-minded, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Good job."

The wolf inside of him was still nervous, agitated. Whatever the dragon had been, wherever it had gone, they had done nothing but chase it away. It was still here, lurking, waiting. And for some reason, his spirit animal was telling him that it was _closer. _

Acajou mumbled something into the dirt.

"What?"

"_It didn't have a name."_

Farkas scratched his head. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"_Dragons are very, very proud of their names. They love shouting them at every chance they get, because that's where they get their strength." _She thought for a moment, waving her tail back and forth, fanning cold air over Farkas. _"But even if a dragon doesn't tell you its name, you can kind of hear it when you see them or think about them."_

Farkas looked dumbfounded. Acajou flicked out her tongue and tried again. _"What words come to you when you think about Alduin?"_

Rubbing his chin, the Companion thought for a while. "Death. Burning. The end of everything."

"_Right! That's kind of like what it is, except that I hear it. Sometimes I don't hear the whole name, or I hear it incorrectly, but that might be because I'm bad at listening and I don't know all the Dovah words." _Her voice became sober again. _"The dragon in the sky didn't tell me his name. He was hiding it."_

"How do you know it was an actual dragon?"

The Dovahkiin paused. _"Because he was talking," _she said, as if it made all the sense in the world. _"Do you want to go back to Whiterun and make sure everyone no one is hurt?"_

"…No. I will stay with you."

Acajou gave a happy snort. She trumpeted, _"Good! Then let's—" _just as a crimson dragon came careening out of the sky and practically landed on top of her with a thunderous roar that blew out both of Farkas's extremely keen eardrums. Staggering as the ground lurched underneath him, the only thought his addled brain could conjure was, _Sweet merciful Talos, now they're falling out of the sky!_

The red dragon braced itself on its wingtips and placed one of his hind feet on Acajou's neck, behind her crest. His talons scored long marks on her scales. Whining like a punished dog, the Dragonborn tried to raise herself, only to be crushed back down as the red dragon barked, _"Hiu mey! To creep about in my territory like a rat, thinking I would not find and destroy you!" _

His voice was deep and booming, heavily accented, reminding Farkas of thunder. He was a good deal larger than Acajou and obviously much older; countless scars and gouges in his scales and horns told of the endless battles he had taken part in. His head was framed with long, jagged horns and his eyes were the eyes of a serpent. The silver mottled scales on his belly flashed as he stretched to tower over the two Companions. _"What insolence! You resist me! Tell me, what is stopping me from ripping your throat out, aar nivahriin?"_

"_Krosis!" _Acajou keened, beating her wings against the ground in her attempt to get away. _"I did not mean to trespass! I did not know this place was claimed by anyone!"_

"_And she begs for her life even as my region reeks with her poison," _the red dragon scoffed, tossing his head and spitting out a lick of flame. _"Yol! Did you not foul the Hofkahsejun with your Shout and declare yourself drog of this territory?"_

"_Niid! I did not!"_

"_And because you did not, you are sneaking away, writhing on the ground like a worm. Pitiful. Fleeing is a cowardly tactic that the joorre have laid claim to. You embarrass all Dov in doing so."_

In the midst of his gloating, a rock bounced off of his snout. Snarling, his angular head whipped to the side to see Farkas, weaponless and barefoot, crouched in a fighting stance with his fists up.

"I don't know what you're going on about," Farkas said. The wolf inside him was snarling, hackles up, giving his words a rumbling undertone. "All I know is that you had better let my Harbinger go before I have to put you down."

_Oh, good one, Farkas. What are you going to do, slap him to death? _He could practically hear Vilkas criticizing his empty threat. It was never his job in battle to come up with witty catchphrases.

The Dovah burst into laughter, beating his wings hard enough to uproot the bushes scattered around them. _"This joor is very funny!" _he bellowed, his mouth opening to show rows of teeth sharp enough to cut diamonds on. _"I will sear the flesh off of his bones and crush them in my mouth when I am done with this insolent worm beneath my foot."_

"I'd like to see you try!" Farkas challenged back. He began to draw on the energy of his beast blood. A few more degrees of anger and this dragon would have to deal with a very angry werewolf.

"_It wasn't me," _Acajou insisted, striking her tail against the ground for emphasis.

"_Still she resists!" _The red dragon dug his talons into her neck, not quite breaking through the scales, but Farkas could see them crack like ice.

"_Niid!" _Acajou's sides were heaving and streaked with sweat. _"That was not my Thu'um."_

"_And yet I sense the Thu'um in your body, the same that still hangs over Dragonsreach. Explain this to me, unworthy one."_

Acajou stilled. _"I am sahlo," _she finally said. _"I only Shouted the storm away. I did not cause it to appear."_

The larger Dovah turned towards Whiterun, squinting into the wind. He seemed to be listening. _"What is your name?" _he finally asked, his voice no longer a dagger to Farkas's ears.

"_Acajou."_

His pink forked tongue flicked out. _"Ahkahjoor?" _he scoffed. _"Indeed you are a strange one! What Dov bears mortality in his name?"_

Acajou said nothing.

In silence, the red dragon seemed to consider her words. _"While you have a whisper of the Thu'um in you, you indeed speak the truth. You are sahlo. The Thu'um that produced the storm did not come from you." _

If Farkas didn't know any better, he would have thought that the huge red dragon sounded… concerned. He hummed in his throat the way Kodlak did when the old Harbinger was deep in thought. Maybe this dragon was worried about what happened to Dragonsreach, too. It sounded like he viewed it as a threat to his power—something Farkas understood all too well.

"_But," _he continued, his voice waxing dangerous again, _"you are an intruder in my domain. Your foolish attempt to dispel the storm was an insult to me, my mulaag. Do you think I have no mastery over my own dominion?"_

"_Niid. You are stronger than I."_

"_You thought that, with Lord Alduin gone, you could usurp whatever section of Keizaal that caught your fancy?_

"_Niid." _ Her voice was steady, patient. Farkas had seen this from her many, many times—especially when she first joined the Companions and she was catching flak from nearly everyone outside of The Circle. They'd drill her with questions, asking her if she thought she was better than they, if she thought she could really be a warrior. _Yes, yes, _Acajou always answered, as many times as it took for them to stop. _Yes._

"_You acknowledge my mulaag?" _

"_Geh."_

"_You acknowledge my mastery of the Thu'um over yours? That you are beholden to serve me and be witness to my strength?"_

A smile—something only Farkas could see—brightened Acajou's eyes. _"Geh," _she said with finality.

None too gently, the crimson dragon lifted his foot off of Acajou's neck and allowed her to stand. Shaking the dust from her scales, she hunkered down in front of him like a punished pet, flaring a wing to protect Farkas in case her shield brother became an acceptable secondary target.

"_You are lucky I do not kill you,"_ the dragon said musingly. His golden eyes flicked to the wing that Farkas stood behind.

"_Please do not harm this joor," _Acajou said, keeping her eyes glued to the ground, not daring to meet his gaze. _"He is my grahzeymahzin. A more honorable human cannot be found anywhere on Nirn."_

"_A laughable thought." _The red dragon fixed a keen eye on Whiterun. The three of them stood so long in silence that Farkas thought the old dragon had forgotten about them. He fidgeted uncomfortably, not wanting to be held behind Acajou like a mother restraining her child.

"_Ahkahjoor." _The dragon rolled the word around in his mouth, obviously disliking the way it felt on his tongue. _"As my aav, it is now your heyv to do my bidding."_

"_Geh."_

"_Then learn my name, and keep it well. I am Odahviing."_

When the dragon pronounced his name, he drew his body upwards, arching his neck, extending his wings; speaking the word seemed to stoke some inner fire or, Farkas thought, inflate his extreme ego.

Then, imperceptibly at first, the warrior felt his legs weaken. The fire went out of his blood; the fierce protectiveness he felt towards Acajou cooled to indifference, and he actually felt his wolf spirit ease back and—_good gods—_lay on its back, offering its belly to the beast in front of him.

_What is this power? _

Beside him, a little shiver, like a leaf in a breeze, went through Acajou's body, but she managed to say, _"Geh," _loud enough for Odahviing to hear.

"_When I call you, you will come."_

Another yes.

With that, the dragon launched itself into the sky with an ease and grace that made Acajou seethe with embarrassment and jealousy. Flapping once and leveling off, Odahviing gave them a cursory glance over his wing before cresting the over the mountains and disappearing from view.

Farkas sat down where he had been standing.

Acajou did, too.

They stayed in silence for a while, shivering together.

Then, in a trembling but feebly optimistic voice, Acajou quipped, "_See what I mean about the whole name thing?"_

* * *

_This chapter is the cannonball in the kiddie pool. Sorry I dropped so much on you at once. Thank you so much for reading. You guys are really the best. I am so thankful that you take the time out of the day to read this drivel, hahaha._

_As always thank you to my reviewers M, thuggie, and Agent 94. See you in a week!_

_ahkahjoor-hunter, pride, mortal_


	14. Knock, Knock

_Skyrim and all related characters and situations belong to Bethesda. _

* * *

**The Road to Kynesgrove**

XIV: Knock Knock

Muscles rippling and pouring sweat, Farkas pulled himself up the final run on Karthspire's northwestern face. The sinking sun threw his shadow across the rocks and crevasses as he made his way, tenuous handhold by handhold, up to where Acajou was waiting for him, peering over the side of the mountain to watch his laborious progress with joy in her eyes.

With a weary grunt, he slapped a calloused hand over the lip of the ledge he had gained, his fingertips turning white as he hauled himself to safety. Acajou protectively curved her neck behind him as he paused to catch his breath, kneeling precariously close to the edge.

"All this to avoid a handful of Forsworn around the corner?" he asked, slowly getting to his feet. Despite being a powerhouse of a man, his arms and shoulders ached from the climb. "I think we could've taken 'em and spared ourselves the hike."

"_I did offer to carry you." _Acajou sniffed. _"Besides, I'm too big to fit inside Karthspire, and this is the only other way we can get to Sky Haven."_

"Yeah, well, you didn't do me any favors by making it sound like this place was some little old lady's cottage on a hill. Why is she living on top of a mountain, anyway?"

"_You'll see," _Acajou said mysteriously, narrowing her eyes in an attempt to look enigmatic.

Flexing his fingers to work out the cramped kinks in the joints, Farkas looked over Acajou's neck at the land below. For some reason, the climb seemed so much higher from where he stood. He took a few cautious steps away from the edge. Acajou followed him.

"_Wanna go see Delphine now?"_

When he first saw the courtyard, Farkas had to admit that he was impressed, albeit a little confused. He didn't know what he had been expecting when he got to "Delphine's house", as Acajou had so simply put it but, when he reached the stone-cobbled courtyard, framed by three open-air structures that looked older than Jorrvaskr itself, he knew that this place was much more than some hermit's abode above the river. He could tell that the trio of buildings, cracked and ivy-choked as they were, were masterfully made, covered with runes and pictures that still told tales centuries after their creation. Within, he could see straw targets and weapon racks. This was a warrior's training ground.

"_Come on!"_

Acajou, perched at the top of a short flight of stairs, blinked at him from over her shoulder. She stood before a line of stone doors set into the mountain, each taller than Farkas by half. Each set had a deeply carved symbol etched into it. This was no shadowmark, no hidden sign. The mark was a pledge, a promise.

"_Go on," _the dragon urged. _"Knock!"_

His knuckles came away stinging when he obeyed. The sound of his fist striking the door echoed within. When minutes passed and no answer came, Farkas turned to Acajou.

"_Maybe they didn't hear you." _She said. _"Here, let me try."_

With a casual swing of her massive head, the Dragonborn slammed her snout into the stone doors with enough force to knock over a house. The resounding _boom _inside made Farkas wince.

"_There. I'm sure they heard that one."_

"Yeah, no kidding." Farkas's ears pricked to the sound of footsteps. Angry footsteps. Moments later, one of the doors in front of him swung open.

Delphine emerged from the shadows of Sky Haven Temple looking like death. When she recognized the two intruders, her lips moved a silent oath and she took a stumbling step outside.

"What are you doing here?"

Her harsh question immediately wiped the toothy smile from Acajou's face. Tightly bandaged from her neck to her hips, one swollen-fingered hand glued to her side like she was holding it in place, the Blade slammed the stone door behind her and glared at them with black-circled eyes, her face scarred and bruised. She almost looked like she had been crying but, when she spoke, her voice had all of her quiet intensity even if it was a little gravelly as if she had been shouting for days.

"What are you doing here?" she rasped again. "What were you _thinking? _What happened?"

"_We came to see you_," Acajou explained timidly, as if that was the only explanation she needed. Predictably, Delphine turned to Farkas with fire in her gaze.

"You brought her here? _Here_, of all places? Do you even know what this place is?" Then she paused. "What the hell kind of get-up are you dressed in?"

Farkas looked down at himself, at the dirty but plush tunic he had liberated from a bandit camp they had passed on their journey. It had obviously belonged to someone well-to-do before the bandits had gotten a hold of it. The material was sky blue and cotton soft, but unfortunately ran a size or two smaller than his broad shoulders could comfortably fit into. The stitches on the sleeves and down the sides were stretched to their limit; he had already ripped the hems at the wrists. At least the boots had fit.

"Farkas was peeing and—"

"I didn't have time to grab all of my things when we left," Farkas interjected quickly, shooting his Harbinger a piercing look. "Delphine, Whiterun was attacked." He paused. "So were you, by the looks of it."

Delphine's expression darkened.

"_It- it was a cloud! It was huge, wasn't it, Farkas?"_ Acajou flared the fan on her tail and bounced a little on her wingtips. "_It came down out of the sky and then it turned into a dragon, right above Dragonsreach. I bet it was even bigger than Dragonsreach!"_

If the words had phased Delphine, she didn't show it. Her eyes grew hard and she crooked her finger at the dragon, "Come here. What are those scratches on your neck from?"

When Acajou remained silent, the Blade reached out and grabbed Acajou's crest, forcing her head down. Odahviing's talons had carved ugly trenches in the otherwise smooth scales. "I said, what are these from?_"_

Acajou gave her a sly look. "I've always had those."

Impatiently shoving the Dragonborn's head away, Delphine half-turned from them with a frustrated growl.

"So you came here," she said on a laugh that held no humor at all. "Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. You know, Acajou, you've done some pretty stupid things since I've known you, but coming _here _for help is one of the most brainless ideas you've had to date. I just… I just don't know what to do with you."

"Wait, wait," Farkas interrupted, stepping between Acajou and the Blade. "I must be missing something here. Last time we saw you, you were all up in arms about being the one to help get Acajou back to her own body. Why the change of heart just because we showed up on your doorstep?"

"Get out of my face, wolfman," Delphine spat. "This doesn't concern you."

"It damn well _does _concern me, if you're talking about _my _Harbinger," Farkas snarled back, purposefully stepping too close to Delphine. She held her ground and stared up into his darkened face, scowling. "I need to know if I can trust you with _my _shield-sister. Right now, it doesn't look like I can."

"You presume much by calling me an enemy. Out of the three of us, you are the least informed about the situation and have no right to get your hackles up about something you don't understand." Despite the fight in her words, her eyes were tired and her shoulders sagged. Despite being horrendous at reading the situation, even Farkas could tell something was wrong.

"Then why don't you fill me in? Shor's bones, I'm trying to help here. By the looks of you, you need all the help you can get."

"A great help indeed, bringing her to Sky Haven Temple," was the scoffed answer. She turned to Acajou, her bruised cheeks flushed red. "You didn't even have the brains enough to let him know before you got here, did you?"

Head hanging like a punished dog's, Acajou muttered, _"It's not something to get angry about. I'm sure if the others found out, you'd be able to explain it to them pretty easily, right?"_

"That isn't the point, Dragonborn. You just don't get it."

Farkas, hearing enough bickering, reached out and grabbed Delphine none-too-gently by the upper arm. "Tell me what is going on here," he said, and his words had a finality that even Delphine had to respect.

So saying, he crossed his arms and waited in stony silence as the sun threw the last rays of its red-orange light on the ancient mountaintop. Delphine blew out a furious sigh.

"Sky Haven Temple," she began, obviously trying to rein in her temper, "has been around since the First Era. It first served as a fortress for the Akaviri Dragonguard—my ancestors—in their fight against the dragons. It is the home of the Blades—a faction dedicated to protecting, and championed by, the Dragonborn." She nodded to Acajou. "Thanks to her, we have been slowly rebuilding our numbers after nearly being wiped out by the Thalmor, and this place serves as our secret haven. It must never be seen by eyes other than those belonging to a Blade.

"Of course, now that you've seen it, I guess _that _rule's no longer in affect. But I digress. You must take the knowledge of this place to your grave, if you value your life, and Acajou's."

_And yours_, Farkas thought, watching her lips move. He had expected a woman of her age to have more wrinkles. Aloud he said, "I still don't understand why you're mad. You're not telling me something. What does being a Blade have to do with anything?"

"_The Blades are a group of dragonslayers."_ Acajou's candid voice made the term sound so innocent. It took a moment for the words to sink in. _"This is where they all train."_

A moment of silence followed.

"The Blades are dragonslayers," Farkas repeated slowly. He pointed at Delphine. "You're a Blade?"

"Keep your mouth shut about it," was the reply.

The gears in his brain began to turn faster. "_You're _a dragonslayer?" He turned to Acajou. "You're running around with a _dragonslayer_?"

"_Well, I'm supposed to be one, too."_

Delphine glared at her. "Not 'supposed to'. You _are_."

"Wait, wait." Farkas held up both hands, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. "You said that I was wrong calling you the enemy, and yet here you are admitting to being someone who kills dragons. You keep telling me that I don't understand anything, but isn't it a little obvious why I'm confused?"

"I won't stand here and be accused on the threshold of my own fortress," Delphine said coldly. "Whether or not you can wrap your mind around the situation is irrelevant. I am helping the Dovahkiin because I am bound to do so. In her true form, Acajou is the greatest dragonslayer living on Nirn, and it is my station as a Blade to return her to that form.

"However, I cannot risk having her initiates—those who have only recently taken up the mantle—see their leader in this form. It would destroy everything they've worked for. Imagine, being told that your only goal in life is to follow the Dragonborn and help her slay dragons and, in the next moment, seeing that your leader is one of the creatures you have learned to hate the most in this world."

"But, surely they wouldn't kill her if they knew who she was. Does her form really matter so much to them?"

Delphine locked eyes with him, her face a somber mask in the nearly-gone light. "We do not have the luxury of trusting others," she said softly. "Our numbers are few. Our enemies are many. I cannot send my Blades out into the world with the idea that _any _dragon can be their ally. That mental uncertainty is…fatal."

The whole premise seemed warped to Farkas, but he held his tongue. "All right," he said. "I understand. I think."

Seeing the humans' tempers cool, Acajou deemed it safe to speak again. _"The Blades are really very nice, Farkas._" She paused. _"You know, if you join up, you'll make an even seventh member!"_

"Sixth," Delphine said dully. Acajou fixed her with a puzzled look and her eyes squinted as she tried to do the math in her head.

"_Huh?" _she finally said.

Delphine turned back towards the doors. She seemed so tiny compared to the towering Akaviri symbol. Her voice was heavy as she spoke. "Mjoll died two days ago."

* * *

"Farengar!"

Jarl Balgruf the Greater of Whiterun was not quick to anger. While his voice was gruff and his tone could be harsh, he was a wise and honest diplomat, fair in all aspects of his jarlship. Not only was he greatly revered in his hold for being so willing to deliver assistance to anyone who petitioned it from him but he had, so far, kept Whiterun out of the messy business of Skyrim's civil war and had maintained relative peace in his hold. This peace allowed his citizens to go about their lives undisturbed by the violence enveloping the lands around them.

Which was why he was absolutely _furious_ when a Thalmor Justiciar appeared at Whiterun's front gates that morning and demanded a council with him and his court mage.

"Farengar!" The shouted name echoed off of the walls of Dragonsreach. The guards standing in front of the dais flinched at the sound as the Jarl stood up, hands balled into fists, and bellowed the wizard's name until a hooded and robed figure appeared from the shadows of the mage's quarters.

"Yes?" Farengar asked without lowering his hood or making eye contact. If Balgruf hadn't been so angry, he would have noticed that the words 'my Jarl' had not followed the affirmation. The circumstances being what they were, Balgruf merely pointed a stern finger and the ground in front of him and waited impatiently for Farengar to make his way over to the dais to be interviewed.

"I usually keep myself out of your affairs," the Jarl began, folding his arms over his chest, "because I trust you. You have been a good mage, a good advisor, a good friend, to me for many years. I only expect you to do your duty and help me protect Whiterun from whatever may threaten it. This is not an unreasonable expectation."

Farengar slowly inclined his head.

"The other day, you assured me that the storm you summoned over Whiterun was an accident. A _harmless _accident. I believed you." Balgruf's bearded face darkened with anger. "So why are three Thalmor agents knocking down my door, saying that _your _magic killed one of their wizards?"

If his hood hadn't been pulled forward so far, Farengar's smile could have been seen by all of the shocked inhabitants of Dragonsreach. In all honesty, he didn't know why he was smiling. His heart was seized with fear at the memory of the storm. He managed to get rid of the grin twisting his lips before saying, "Are you going to invite them in, my Jarl, so we may discuss the issue?"

"We're already here."

Turning to see the owner of the insufferably haughty voice, Farengar counted three Altmer ascending the steps to the main level of Dragonsreach. All three were men, and each were garbed in black and gold robes that accentuated their height and narrow shoulders. Their golden-lipped mouths were firm and frowning, and three pairs of slanted eyes fixed Farengar with accusing stares. Something within Farengar laughed gleefully, but he showed no outward signs except straightening his posture. He hated being looked down on by elves.

"I don't believe we have anything to _discuss_," sniffed the Thalmor who had spoken before. Looking Farengar up and down just once, he turned his elegantly slanted eyes to Balgruf. "My name is Elsehir. I am a representative of the Thalmor Embassy and have been sent to retrieve this man for interrogation. Please allow us to remove this murderer from your house and deliver him to justice."

"I welcomed you through my doors to negotiate this matter and figure out the correlation between the attack on your kinsman and my mage's storm," Balgruf said flatly. "I will not allow you to accuse him without some sort of proof."

"It must be difficult, living up to all of these Nords' preconceptions about your tribe being complete barbarians when it comes to Skyrim social etiquette. You actually have to give a _reason _for wanting to kill someone before you take them off to the block," Farengar said mildly, just loud enough for Elsehir to hear. The high elf curled his lip.

"Farengar," Balgruf said warningly.

"I would at least like to know exactly why these mer want me dead before they cart me off to the Embassy."

Elsehir held up an elegant, long-fingered hand. "You do not have a reason to inquire into the nature of our visit. All you need to know is that we have reason to believe that you killed a high-ranking Thalmor agent several weeks ago in the mountains to the northwest, and we have been unable to track you until you so _stupidly _displayed your so-called _storm _the other day."

"Ah, typical Altmer logic!" The fear that would have usually gripped his body was mysteriously absent, and instead he had the audacity to turn his back on their company and stroll a few paces away. "A Thalmor dies somewhere, and the guilty party happens to be someone performing a spell in a completely different part of the country, weeks later. Please excuse me if I find the charges ridiculous."

"If you were a mage of the caliber that you claim," Elsehir said, his silken voice a dangerous hiss, "you would know that magic can be traced back to its user. It takes a mage of considerable prowess to be able to do so, but such mages are not uncommon in the ranks of the Thalmor. Rest assured, your storm did not kill our brother—but _you _did."

Balgruf, worry in his eyes, glanced surreptitiously at his mage. How could he prove innocence now?

Farengar reached up and pushed his hood back. His expression was serene, despite his tired eyes. "It was beautiful, was it not? Visible for miles around, no doubt." The words came bubbling out of his throat like water out of a spring, and, like a man parched, he didn't want to stop drinking. The small voice in his heart saying _that's not my voice _was drowned out in the wave. "Perhaps my magic did, somehow, cause the death of your kinsman, although it was not to my knowledge. Not that Thalmor ever accept _apologies._

"But maybe they'll accept a bargain?"

The high elves were silent. The two behind Elsehir exchanged looks.

"I think you're out of your head," Balgruf said, ever the frank diplomat.

"You know the term 'a life for a life', correct? Would a tasty piece of information sate your appetite for revenge for the moment?"

Elsehir snorted. "I cannot believe this. You began this discussion by belittling us for accusing you, and yet you fully admit to the murder of a Thalmor wizard and attempt to bargain your way out of a sentence." He reached out to grab Farengar by the upper arm, but was stopped by the look in Farengar's eyes, and something _else, _something he could not see, but sense, and he shivered involuntarily.

Farengar didn't know why the name formed in his throat. His voice was gone, replaced with one that was _almost _his. The similarity frightened him, and still he could not close his lips.

Smiling into the Thalmor's somber faces, Farengar asked, "What does the word 'Delphine' mean to you?"

* * *

That night, they laid Mjoll to rest under the stars.

From an outcropping on a nearby mountain, Acajou watched the slow procession of warriors proceed from Sky Haven Temple to the courtyard. Earlier in the evening, they had constructed a pyre between the training buildings, taking the utmost care in arranging the aspen and oak branches as precisely and beautifully as possible. Now their task was to lay Mjoll's body in the bed of pine straw and tundra cotton in the center and set it aflame.

Mortally wounded, Delphine had said, while fighting a blood dragon. Held on long enough to see two more mornings before succumbing to her injuries, despite Esbern and Erandur exhausting themselves to try to save her. She had died mid-sentence, trying to convince them all that she would be all right.

Esbern walked before them, holding a book with the Akaviri Dragonborn symbol etched on its leather cover; singing the funeral song, no doubt, although Acajou could not hear him over the sound of the river below despite being able to see his lips move. Behind him limped Delphine, singing as well, carrying a torch as she proceeded four figures that bore Mjoll on their shoulders. Acajou squinted her slitted eyes. There was Erandur, his face a stone mask, under her left shoulder. Sven, trying and failing to look stoic as anguished tears streaked down his face, at her left hip. She could see Farkas supporting Mjoll's right side, and thought, with some consternation, that it was odd for Delphine to allow outsiders to participate in Blade funerals. The figure under Mjoll's right shoulder was not dressed in traditional Blade attire like the others, and it took a moment for Acajou to recognize the sleek shoulder-length brown hair and serious face. When she did, her heart seized, and she bent her head with sorrow too great to give words to.

Aerin.

They placed Mjoll's body on the pyre as gently as possible, arranging her hands over the Amulet of Talos balanced on her sternum. Her body was clad in her Blades armor that Delphine had spent the last day and a half meticulously polishing; it shone like ebony in the blazing moonlight. Her face had been washed clean of its usual cerulean warpaint, and her serene expression and unbound honey-golden hair made her look like a child.

Keen eyes fixed on her face, Acajou remembered her first time running into Mjoll in Riften, months ago. She had gotten lost on the way to Ivarstead and had stumbled into the corruption-riddled town and immediately had gotten her only bag of coins swiped right off of her hip. Chasing the thief, she had turned a corner and run straight into a tall woman, clad in iron armor and armed with a battleaxe, just as she was hoisting the thief up by the collar of his cloak.

"I believe this is yours?" she asked in a heavy, lilting Nordic accent, tossing Acajou the pouch of gold. Her eyes were fierce but she was smiling, a large toothy smile that reminded the Dragonborn of a sabre cat baring its fangs. Acajou watched, slacked jawed, as the woman known as the Lioness physically dragged the thief off to the guards.

"It's a pity they'll just set the bastard free when she turns her back," a voice at her shoulder had said. Turning, she saw a young man leaning up against a railing on the walkway, smiling at her. His voice was cheerful and genuinely friendly. "The guards in Riften have it in with the Thieves' Guild, after all."

Acajou had looked down at the pouch in her hand. "Who is she?"

"She," the man—Aerin—said, with his eyes flashing with admiration, "is Mjoll. She is Riften's protector. You won't find a more honest, brave, or dedicated warrior in all of Skyrim. She's wasted here, among all the rabble. She should be seeking her fortune out in the wilds, or leading soldiers to glory, but instead she's planted herself here, to try and weed out the wickedness that's taken root. You'd do well to thank her when she gets back. She doesn't receive much recognition for what she does."

"You seem to know a lot about her."

Aerin had laughed, throwing back his head. "I guess that's to be expected. I do love her more than anything on Tamriel, after all."

_And I took her away from him, _Acajou mourned, watching as Aerin and the others backed away from the pyre, forming a half-circle around the body of their fallen comrade. The other Blades were singing now, too, but Acajou could see Aerin's lips were forming different syllables, his eyes dead even in the light of the torch that Delphine carried. He was sending her off with a song of his own, and Acajou would've given anything to hear it, to be there with them, to sing the song of the woman who had given up her life and her love to follow in her service, to show that she knew what kind of sacrifice that was, that her loss was an absolute failure on Acajou's part to uphold her most important tenant: _never endanger anyone else if you don't have to. Never allow others to get hurt in your stead_.

_It's all my fault. _Acajou hid her head in the crook of her wing, curling into herself in grief. _She wouldn't be dead if it wasn't for me. It's all my fault._

Across the chasm, as she lowered the torch until the orange flames were licking at the bottom of the pyre, Delphine was thinking the exact same thing.

* * *

_I really didn't want to kill Mjoll offscreen. The story is about to get a little more serious, and I'm a little nervous because I tend to take serious things waaaay too far. However, I am really excited to show you the next phase of the story, and I hope you stick with me for the journey! _

_Thanks so much to thug, Agent94, Saphire Basil, Lazuli, and Sayle for reviewing. I think you all are wonderful!_

_Thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, and favorited RtK so far. I appreciate it more than I can say. _


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